


Up From Flames

by buzzylittlebee



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bending (Avatar), Everything Changed When The Fire Nation Attacked, F/M, Hurt Zuko (Avatar), Hurts So Good, Katara (Avatar)-centric, Katara - Freeform, Loss of Parent(s), Mildly Dubious Consent, Minor Original Character(s), One-sided Aang/Katara (Avatar), Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, POV Zuko (Avatar), Stubborn Katara (Avatar), Zuko (Avatar)-centric, Zuko - Freeform, Zuko is an asshole, Zutara, katara was raised firenation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:15:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 23,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25446745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buzzylittlebee/pseuds/buzzylittlebee
Summary: Over a hundred years have passed since the Avatar disappeared, and the Fire Nation is nearing victory in the war. As for me, the Fire Nation caught wind of the fact that I showed signs of being a waterbender when I was five. They raided my village, desperate to control as many waterbenders as possible just in case the Avatar cycle had continued. That was thirteen years ago. I've been living in the royal palace in the Fire Nation capital, Sozin, and traveling with the prince ever since.AU in which Katara was captured by the Fire Nation and was raised alongside Zuko. All characters have been aged up appropriately due to the mature nature of this work.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar), Mai/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 95





	1. Prologue

Water. Earth. Air. Fire.

My grandmother used to tell me stories about the old days, a time of peace, when the Avatar kept the balance between the Water Tribes, Earth Kingdom, Fire Nation, and Air Nomads. But all that changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop the Fire Nation. But when the world needed him most, he vanished.

Over a hundred years have passed, and the Fire Nation is nearing victory in the war. Four years ago, my father and the men of my tribe went to help in the fight against the Fire Nation, leaving my brother to take care of the tribe. As for me, the Fire Nation caught wind of the fact that I showed signs of being a waterbender when I was five. They raided my village, desperate to control as many waterbenders as possible just in case the Avatar cycle had continued. That was thirteen years ago. I've been living in the royal palace in the Fire Nation capital, Sozin, and traveling with the prince ever since.

Some people believe that the Avatar was never born into the Air Nomads and that the cycle was broken. That’s what the Fire Nation tells people, anyway. But I haven't lost hope. I know he’s out there. And finding him will change the world.


	2. Chapter 1

The snowflake on my mitten is black. I look up and more of the strange black flakes fall on my face, sticking to my eyelashes. It smells like the smoke from our fires. Eyes wide, I drop the snowball I was making and look to my older brother, Sokka. His eyes are wide too. “We gotta find Dad!” He turns and runs to the front of the village, where Dad and the other men train during the day. I follow him, and when Dad comes into view, I run faster.

As I run up to him, Dad kneels down and grabs my arms. The beads in his hair click together, and he looks worried. "Katara, you and Sokka go find your mother. Now!" I jump at the sharp tone of his words but nod and turn to Sokka. His shiny boomerang is in his hand, an angry look on his face. "Sokka, go with your sister,” Dad tells him.

"But Dad! I can help!" Sokka's voice cracks.

"Sokka, I need your help. I’m trusting you to protect your mother and sister. Can you do that for me?” A tear slides down Sokka's cheek, but he grabs my arm and runs toward our igloo. The black snow keeps falling and our white parkas turn black.. 

"Mommy!" I yank my arm out of Sokka's hand and run into our igloo. Mommy turns to look at me as I run in. Sokka follows behind me and then there's a big crash. The ground shakes and people outside start screaming. "Mommy, the snow is black!" She looks sad and a hand raises to cover her mouth. 

"Sokka, Katara! Quickly, you need to hide. Behind here. Hurry!" Mommy moves the barrel we keep water in and pushes us between the fish and flour barrels. The fish smell bad, but Mommy puts the water barrel back in front of us. "No matter what happens, you must be quiet, and you must not come out." Sokka and I nod. Mommy paces in front of the fire as we hide, wringing her hands. 

It seems like forever before anything happens. Three big men come into the igloo. "Where is the waterbender, woman?" The one in the middle asks Mommy. They’re tall and they wear heavy red armor that clunks as they move. The two who don’t speak have scary red helmets, and I can’t see their eyes. 

"I will never tell. Never." Mommy stands up tall and stares down the three men. The two on the sides flick their wrists and fire comes out of their hands. I’m scared, I want to look away, but I can’t. I have to watch. Mommy doesn’t react to their bending, even though I can feel the heat all the way behind the barrels.

"Tell us, or you'll regret it." Mommy says nothing. The middle one motions with his hand and the two benders throw their fire at her.  
"Mommy!" I scream and jump out from behind the smelly fish barrel. I bump it and spill water over the floor of our igloo. Terrified and angry, I face the strange men and the water begins trembling. 

"Katara..." Mommy looks black like the snow. She smells like a snow elk leg when someone drops it in the fire. The pelts that make up our floor are turning red around her. "T-take.. my n-necklace." Mommy touches the ivory disk at her throat. I begin to cry as I drop to my knees in red fur and untie the blue ribbon from her throat. "R-remember w-who you are..."

The two firebenders move toward me, but Sokka jumps in front of me. He holds his boomerang above his head. "Don't touch my sister!" One of the men simply chuckles and kicks Sokka out of the way while the other one grabs me.

"No! No. Let me go! Sokka! Let me go!" I kick and scream, but the firebenders carry me out of the igloo and toward a big, black metal ship. I can hear fighting around me and look around for someone, anyone, to help me. There is no one.

They put me in a big room with no windows. There is a simple bed and a rug in front of a fire. Candles line the walls. The door closes behind me and I turn and bang on it, screaming. I scream until my throat burns and there’s no more sound. By then I’m sweating, so I take off my parka. Men bring food and slide it under the door, but I don't eat it. I sleep a lot. It seems like many days before two women finally come into the room with me. They bathe me and put my hair into a bun. They put a little golden fire in the band. They dress me in a pink dress. It has see-through sleeves and ties in a bow at the back. I’m too tired to fight, but keep my mother’s necklace hidden tight in my palm. 

Later, two men in armor like the ones who hurt Mommy come into the room. They take my arms and pull me through the ship. Up and upstairs and through corridors. I’ve never seen a ship so big. Then, finally, a door, and the sun. It’s bright and it hurts my eyes but I look up at the sky and enjoy the warmth. It’s better than the warmth from the fires. Then I look down, and I see it. A huge palace of red and gold, surrounded by tall brick walls. I’ve never seen something so big that wasn’t made of ice. I squeeze the carved ivory pendant of the necklace a little harder. 

The ship docks in the bay in front of the palace and I’m led down a steep ramp onto the ground. I miss the rocking of the sea almost instantly. A family is waiting for me. A mom, a dad, a boy, and a girl. They all have black hair, and they’re dressed in deep red and gold. The parents have gold ornaments in their hair. The woman steps forward. "Welcome, little one. It is an honor to have the only waterbender in the south pole as our guest.” She smiles, and for a minute, she looks like Mommy. The boy comes forward next. "This is my son, Prince Zuko."

Zuko bows. His eyes are golden, like the sunsets over the ice. The girl comes up next to her brother. "I'm Princess Azula. I can tell we're going to be great friends." Her eyes are gold too, but they’re hard and cold.

~~~

Ty Lee brushes my hair out, chattering about how thick and soft it is. Ty Lee is always nice to me, whenever I’m forced to spend time with the princess and her friends. This past year I’ve stayed in my room as much as possible, but I have to play with them once a week. The Fire Lord says that it’s to make sure I accept the Fire Nation as my home. 

"This is so boring." Mai, Princess Azula's other friend, groans. She leans back in her chair and looks to the ceiling. 

"You're always bored, Mai!" Ty Lee sets down the brush she's been using to look at the girl, whose face seems to be permanently pinched in a frown. 

"No, she's right, Ty Lee. This is boring." Azula jumps up from her gigantic bed, bossing us around like the spoiled seven-year-old princess she is. "Let's go find ZuZu. I bet he's doing something fun." I stand with Ty Lee and follow the Princess out of her chambers. We pass my chambers, right across from Zuko's, on the way to the gardens. Zuko is there a lot. He and Fire Lady Ursa like to feed the turtle ducks. I can see them out my window when they sit together under the tree by the pond.

When we get there, Zuko is alone. He kneels by the pond, his back to us. "Well go on, Katara." Azula pushes me toward Zuko. "Go talk to him." She pushes me again and I stumble over to him, looking back to Azula with worried eyes. Zuko doesn’t like me much. I don’t think he likes anyone that much. 

"H-hi Zuko." I kneel next to him. Zuko has his hands out in front of him. His eyebrows are scrunched together. A few sparks bounce between his fingers, then go out with a fizzle. 

"Ugh! Why can't I get this stupid move?" Zuko throws up his hands. As he does, flames fly from his fingertips. The water sizzles and steams as the fire reaches the pond and disappears. “What do you want?” He snaps, his eyes darkened with anger and pain.

I flinch at his words and the flame, leaning back away from him. I look back to Azula to see her grinning as she does. She scares me more than Zuko, so I look back to him. “Azula made me come over…”

He looks over his shoulder at his sister and her friends. Mai blushes and looks at the ground. She has a crush on Zuko. She tries to hide it, but it doesn’t work. “Azula is mean. You don’t have to do what she says.” He stands and begins walking along the pond to move to the other side. I know if I look at her Azula will make me stay, or worse, get me in trouble, so I follow him. 

I approach him cautiously. “Uncle Iroh showed me something… he said I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone ’cause I’m not supposed to bend, but...” Zuko looks at me at the mention of his uncle. They’re very close, though he doesn’t come back from war very often. “He said to feel the water move through me. Maybe you can do it with fire.”

Zuko nods and takes a deep breath. He closes his eyes and swings his arms, bringing them together in front of him and generating a stream of fire from his hand. I can feel the heat from the fire as it flies over the pond, towards Azula. "Katara! I did it!" Zuko grins at me and closes his hand, extinguishing the flame. 

"ZuZu! Are you really going to learn to firebend from a silly little Water Tribe peasant?" The princess shouts at us as she marches around the pond toward us. “How pathetic. No wonder Dad doesn’t love you.” Azula grabs my arm and tries to drag me away, but I stand my ground. Her brows furrow and she pushes me into the pond. 

"Azula! You can't do that!" Zuko glares at his sister while I sputter to the top of the water, wiping my eyes and trying to catch my breath. 

"I think I just did, ZuZu. Why don't you help your little girlfriend? Come on, girls." Azula turns and leaves, Mai and Ty Lee following behind her.

Zuko turns and takes my hand. "I'm sorry about Azula. She's just mean." I smile at the boy.

"Yeah, she is," my voice is a giggle, and it may just have been the first time I've laughed since I got here.

~~~

"What did you learn today, children?" Fire Lord Ozai asks Zuko and Azula. The princess says something about blue fire. Zuko simply says he's getting closer to mastering another basic move. I stay silent, though I’ve secretly been learning to bend with Uncle Iroh, and today I learned to make a water whip. 

After supper, Fire Lord Ozai leaves for a war meeting. Zuko follows him and I make my way to my chambers to wait. Hours later, Zuko enters and sits on my bed. "Tara... I've been challenged to an Agni Kai."

"What? You're just a kid! Who would challenge you to an Agni Kai?"

Zuko looks at me and tells me what had happened in the war meeting. “Now I must duel the old General for disrespecting him.” He is trying to be brave and strong. He is, but I can tell he’s scared too. 

~~~

"He will not speak to anyone, miss." The guard at Zuko's door tells me. I scoff and cross my arms, body language looking amazingly similar to the dreaded princess of the Fire Nation. 

"He'll speak to me. Let me through!" The guard does not move. We stand in silence, me staring at him, him staring at me until the door creaks open.

"Let her in."

~~~

The Fire Nation shrinks as we sail away. "You know, I never thought I'd ever get to leave."

Zuko shrugs and turns away. His right eye is bandaged and he has shaved his head around his top knot. A sign of shame. "Well, now we can never go back."

After Zuko leaves, Uncle Iroh takes his place. "You must understand how Zuko feels. Unless he finds the Avatar, he will never see his home - or his family - ever again."

"Oh, kind of like how the Fire Nation killed my mother right in front of me and then stole me from my home to take me here? Never knowing when or if I would see the remaining members of my family, not even knowing if they were killed too?" I look up at Uncle. He shrugs and winces apologetically.

"Still, Katara. You must give him time. With that, he will be back to his old self soon." Iroh pats my shoulder and ambles away, heading into the ship.

I was taken from the Southern Water Tribe because we were weak and vulnerable, unlike our sister tribe in the north, who was impenetrable. They took me because I was a water bender. They wanted to have a bender on their side to be able to vouch for them to the Northern Water Tribe in order to help them gain access and hopefully find the Avatar hidden in their midst, having failed to find him in the Raids against my tribe. Fire Lord Ozai had brought me, with his family, to the North Pole to present me to them. They had refused. That was four years ago before Lu Ten had died and Iroh had relinquished his position as Crown Prince to Ozai. It was because of Iroh that Ozai hadn’t killed me then and there, I’m sure. 

My life in that city was full of fear and sorrow. There was some joy, too, but there was not a moment where I did not look over my shoulder, waiting for the Fire Lord to decide I was no longer worth keeping around. The palace may have been Zuko’s home, but to me, it was a prison. 

Standing alone, I can't help but smile at the sight of Sozin shrinking into nothing.


	3. Chapter 2

I stare at Zuko impatiently. "Are you going to turn around and tell me what you think of my new outfit, or am I going to have to find some hot young crew member to tell me how pretty I look?" 

We'd recently stopped in an Earth Kingdom town near the Fire Nation colonies and I'd picked up some new clothes. 

They’re simple, but I like them. Deep scarlet, the top has one sleeve and exposes the bottom of my ribs and my stomach. The skirt hugs my hips but hangs loose and to my mid-calf. There’s a slit up the left side to my thigh and layers of fabric in the skirt that makes it nice and full. And of course, I always wear my mother's necklace. I never take it off. 

Zuko turns, slowly. It's been seven years since he was banished, and our progress on finding the Avatar- which is none- is getting to him. But when he sees me, his good eye widens. "Wow... Tara, you look amazing." I smile at the firebender and give a little twirl. My skirt lifts, exposing more of my legs.

"Thank you." Dashing forward, I give Zuko a hug. "So do you. Your hair is growing out nicely." Last year, I finally convinced him to allow his hair to grow out. Now, it’s to the bottom of his ears, when he doesn’t wear it in a top knot. "But why I really came in is because Uncle wants us to practice."

Zuko's expression turns from surprised admiration to annoyed anger in an instant. "I don't have time to practice, Katara! Finding the Avatar needs all of my energy right now!" He throws up his hands and turns to study the map again. His back hunches as he bends down to the table, raising and lowering with his breath. 

The prince's moody tendencies no longer surprise me; he's been hot and cold for the last six and a half years. When we didn't immediately find the Avatar, he became testy and irritable almost all the time. He’s frustrated, I know. How could he not be? To him, this is his only option to rid himself of shame.

I step forward and place my hand on his. "The Avatar is one hundred and sixteen years old. If we're going to take him captive, we need to practice. He's mastered all four elements by now! Neither of us are masters, plus we only have fire and water." Smiling, I bend a bit of water and let it splash over his head. "Now, I know you're not just going to let me get away with that." 

As always, Zuko does exactly as I predict and chases me when I turn and run. My laugh echoes off the metal walls of the ship that has been our home for nearly a decade now. A blast of flame hits the wall to my left and I duck and slide around a corner and wait for the smoke to clear, and for Zuko. My lips lift into a smile and I listen closely. His breathing is heavy and he gives himself away. I move quickly and throw a few ice daggers to distract him while I ice his feet to the floor.

Two blasts fly by either side of my head. Zuko smirks at me through the smoke and breaks through the ice. His firebending turns to punches, my waterbending to dodges. We move through the steps, stuck in the oldest dance known to man.

I look into his eyes while we fight. Ever since we met, I've been mesmerized by his eyes. Not simply the color, though the rich gold is amazing in and of itself, the person inside. Even though he only ever show’s his father’s fighting spirit anymore, I know he's kind like Fire Lady Ursa was, and you can see it in the golden orbs. Nothing means more to him than what his father thinks. It's why he wants to find the Avatar so much. 

We stay too close to use bending, and little by little, Zuko overwhelms me. I can hold my own when it's fire against water, but without bending, Zuko is simply stronger than me. He swipes his foot under mine, knocking me off balance. I feel myself fall, so I grab the front of his shirt to bring him down with me.

I hit the metal floor hard and Zuko follows, falling first on his knees between my legs, and then on his hands on either side of my head. We both breathe hard, trying to regain the air knocked out of our lungs, and I can smell the smokiness of his breath in my face. Gold meets blue and Zuko leans down slowly. "Tara..." His voice holds a quality I've never heard before, but it ignites something in me that I like, something I have felt before. We grew up on this ship, with only each other, and as we grew so did something else, something unspoken. At least, it grew with me. 

The feeling scares me, so I buck my hips, knocking the prince back so that I can scramble out from under him. I run from him, again, down the corridor and out the door to the deck. The sight of the ocean is a welcoming one and I lean against the wall, watching it. 

There’s a crash and Zuko bursts out the door, looking around frantically. His eyes finally lock on me and he breathes a breath of relief. “Tara! Are you okay?” He takes a few steps toward me, then falters. “I- I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you fall so hard.” 

It’s my turn to breathe in relief now, knowing that at least for the time being, we won’t speak about those unspoken things. “I’m fine. I shouldn’t have run. Let’s keep going.”

~~~

We spar on the deck until sundown, when Iroh comes to collect us for supper. We’re tired, dripping with sweat, the earlier incident all but forgotten in the back of our minds. The prince and I clean up before joining Iroh in the formal dining room of the ship. Supper is quiet, each of us lost in our own heads until Uncle clears his throat. “Katara. We are nearing your eighteenth birthday.” I tense up at his tone. There’s a sense of seriousness about him that he doesn’t often have- especially not when birthdays are the topic of conversation.

“In the fire-nation, a girl becomes a woman when she has reached marriageable age, at 18. When you were taken from your tribe, the plan for you was to raise you in our traditions, and offer you to the Northern Water Tribe to be an inside ally, and when you were of marrying age, to marry you off within the Fire Nation.” Iroh takes a breath, studying his hands. “When we were met with unexpected hostility from the Northern Water Tribe, it was all I could do to convince my brother not to imprison you, or worse. Now, Katara, you are nearly a woman. And I believe you should have a say in your destiny. Katara,” silence grows between us. Iroh raises his head, looks me in the eyes. “Would you like to return to the South Pole?”

~~~

I stroke the pendant of my mother's necklace as I study the clothes Zuko got me to endure the cold of my homeland. The main fabric is the skin of a moose lion, dyed red. The hood is lined with grey fur, with white tips. I'm not sure of the animal, but it's soft. The same fur is used in the three tail-like decorations on the front of the parka and the edges of the sleeves. I know it has been hand-made by the finest seamstress outside the Fire Nation.

My feelings regarding our destination are mixed. I'm excited to see Sokka and Gran Gran and Amka, but it has been thirteen years. I don't know them anymore. I was raised in the Fire Nation, and yes, I'm a waterbender, but I don't feel Water Tribe. I know nothing of the culture, outside of bits and pieces that I have either remembered or learned from Uncle Iroh. I was never truly welcome in the Fire Nation due to where I was born, but what if I'm not welcome in the Water Tribe because of where I was raised? I don't know if I can deal with truly having no place in this world.

A soldier pokes his head in my room. "Miss Katara? We've arrived." I nod and send him away. Before putting on my parka, I do my hair in a bun with a braid. I take two pieces of my hair from the front of my head and tie them back, securing them in my bun. My mother used to do my hair this way.

Zuko meets me at the front of the ship. We walk to the gangplank and are met by a boy who can't be any older than Azula. Nineteen, twenty maybe. He has a boomerang. I know it's Sokka, my brother, but I can't do anything but reach for Zuko's hand and hold it tightly. When our feet touch the snow, Sokka speaks.

"The Fire Nation has taken everything from us; we have nothing left for you to take. I'm going to ask you to leave. If you don't, we are prepared to fight you." He speaks with a voice fraught with false strength. Courageous, but if you listen closely, you can hear it waver with fear. Behind Sokka is nothing but women, children, and the elderly. I know behind me, on the ship, are fifty-plus soldiers, ready to fight for their prince. If a fight should ensue, the Southern Water Tribe would be incinerated, quite literally.

Uncle Iroh steps off the gangplank just after Sokka's speech. "No, child. You misunderstand. We haven't come to take anything from you. In fact, we have brought something back!" Uncle chuckles and places a hand on my shoulder. Sokka seems to notice me for the first time. His blue eyes are just a shade darker than mine, his hair a shade lighter. Recognition floods his features and there's disbelief in his eyes.

"Katara? Is that really you?" Tears fill this boy’s eyes and I can see him being kicked aside by one of the firebenders that took me and hear his voice screaming my name. I look at Zuko and he smiles encouragingly. I nod at Sokaa, and he grins. He hugs me, pulling my hand from the warmth and safety of Zuko’s. Tentatively, I hug him back. He has the body of a man; I can feel his frame through his furs, but all I can see are the scared eyes of the little boy who watched his mother die.

One by one, each member of the tribe welcomes me back. Amka, my childhood friend, is married now, though her husband left to fight in the war with the rest of the men. She offers up her igloo to Zuko and me, saying she can stay with her mom. Iroh gets plenty of hospitality as well, but he insists on sleeping on the ship.

It's hard to wrap my head around the fact that I know the crown prince of the Fire Nation better than I know my own brother, or that my childhood best friend is nineteen and has been married for two and a half years. It seems so young to be married, but many of the other young women are married too or engaged. Though, Amka is one of the youngest- most younger than her didn’t have time to be married before the men left.

It's odd to hear the crash of the ocean but not feel it rocking beneath me.

~~~

When the sun sets, Gran Gran calls me away to help with supper. Mostly I just stir the stew and watch Sokka talk to Zuko. Both of them seem angry. I know Sokka blames the entire Fire Nation for my kidnapping and Mom's death, but I don't know why Zuko would be mad. Eventually, Zuko turns kicks up some snow and disappears into Amka's igloo.

Sokka sits down heavily next to me. "Your fire-breathing boyfriend is a pain in the ass, Katara."

I hope the darkness and the cold air hides my blush, the memory of the brief moment we shared playing over and over in my mind. Though it was nearly three weeks ago, it has haunted me. The thought of what may have happened, had I not been a coward and ran, has been non-stop these past days. "He's not my boyfriend. He can breathe fire, though. It's pretty cool."

My brother shrugs. "Whatever. But I know, and Amka knows, and Gran Gran knows, that you're his girlfriend."

"What were you two fighting about?" Hopefully, Sokka is frustrated enough that he'll complain instead of insisting Zuko is my boyfriend.

"The war. He's the prince, right? Surely he knows something." Sokka's expression grows distant, like he's not telling me the whole truth, but I don't push him. "I can't believe you're back, Katara. I never thought I would see you again. And... y- you look just like Mom." He lurches forward and hugs me suddenly, causing the spoon I was holding to go splashing into the stew.

"Sokka!" I break away and bend the stew out of the pot so I can grab the spoon. Once I have it, I place the stew back. He watches with wide eyes. Everything about the moment annoys me. His sudden affection, his shock at my bending, his teasing about Zuko. It’s just so… Sokka. I shove the spoon into his hand and go to find Amka. The girl hasn't changed much from what I remember, even as long as it's been, and I still feel very comfortable around her. Surely she can give me advice about how to deal with my irritating older brother.


	4. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CW: mention of minors in sexual situations, prostitution, sexually oppressive cultures, sexually open cultures, mention of same sex relations, masturbation

I find my friend serving her mother tea in an igloo between hers and the medicine igloo. Both ladies greet me warmly and Amka hands me a cup filled with steaming jasmine tea. It isn't quite as good as Uncle's, but I relish the warmth.

"Surely you want to sup with your brother and grandmother, Katara. Why do you find yourself here?" Hakana, Amka's mother asks me. She looks just like an older version of her daughter. They have the same deep brown skin and bright grey-blue eyes. Even the same hairstyle, though Hakana's is starting to grey.

A few answers run through my mind, but in the end, I decide to shrug. I don't know how to say my brother is being annoying and I want to spend the least amount of time with him as possible right now. I know I should miss him, and I do… I just don’t know him. And I don't know if I care to.

As we eat the sea prune stew Hakana made, my mind wanders yet again to that day, that moment. It was only a second and his lips didn’t even touch mine, but the tone of his voice when he'd said my name, the look in his eyes... All of it just aroused a feeling of the best discomfort I've ever felt. After supper, I pull Amka aside to ask her about it. She is married, after all, and maybe Water Tribes handle things of this nature differently than the Fire Nation does.

"Amka... did you ever have... feelings for anyone before you married Panuk?" My cheeks heat up. In the Fire Nation, girls are told that they are not to speak of impure feelings, or touch themselves or anyone else until their first night as a wife. Boys, however, are told the opposite. On Zuko's thirteenth birthday, Fire Lord Ozai had bought him a woman. I stood at my door and watched his, wondering what was going on until Azula told me the girl I'd seen was a whore and Zuko was taking her. She'd said it was a right of passage for highborn boys to do it with a girl on their thirteenth birthday, to signify becoming a man. I suppose that’s why Ozai had no trouble dueling him in an Agni Kai soon after. In the eyes of tradition, Zuko was an adult.

Amka merely grins at the sight of my red face. "Of course. Why? Are you all hot and bothered for a certain bender, Kat?" Her words shock me and I protest. "Don't worry about it, Kat. It's normal. In the Water Tribes, girls are encouraged to explore themselves. Even other girls. Boys are off limits until marriage, though. It's the same for them, too. The more you know yourself, the better your husband or wife can pleasure you." My eyes grow wider with every word from her lips. Girls lying with girls and boys lying with boys? Even the mere mention of something like that would have gotten me locked in my room for days without food in the palace, but here, it is encouraged.

"But... how? Why?" I wring my hands to try and get rid of some of the tension. "Did you ever... you know?" Amka tells me how to pleasure myself and about the first time she pleasured a girl, tales of Panuk's escapades with boys, and how to pleasure a man. By the time she is finished, the moon is high, and my mind is scrambled. Amka had spoken so enthusiastically of things I’d never heard of, not even when Azula would make me eavesdrop in the servant’s quarters. 

Zuko is staring into the fire in Amka's igloo when I enter. The sight of him causes my face to go red and my mind to swim with everything I've just been told.

We talk for a while, then move into the bedrooms. Amka's igloo is small, but it has two bedrooms, one for her and Panuk, and one for their first child. Each room has its own firepit. After lighting a fire, I take off my parka and the simple red shift I wear under it, leaving me in my bindings. I climb under the furs on the bedroll as fast as I can so I don't freeze.

My mind wanders yet again as I lay beneath the furs, staring at the curved ice bricks that make up the ceiling. As I think of the firebender in the other room and of my friend's words, my hand slides between my legs. I rub myself through my bindings, surprised by how good it feels. Soon, I unwind the white cloth, both top and bottom. They're flung to the side and I continue my ministrations slowly.

My breathing quickens and I pretend it is Zuko's finger dipping into my sex, his tongue caressing my nipple. His thumb rubbing my clit, causing me to cry out. I bite my lip to keep sound from coming out, but I still moan. I pretend it is Zuko's fingers coming to my clit, soaking with my juices, to massage it forcefully and quickly. "Ah! Spirits, oh! Zuko!" I finish, panting, and I suck myself off my fingers. Why would anyone discourage this? Something that feels so good can not possibly be bad. Right?

~Zuko~

My eyes are wide, my ears still ringing with the sounds of Tara's moans. She couldn't possibly have just... There's no way she did what I just heard. Surely I'm missing something. But, that's what it sounded like. That is what my body heard, as made clear by the throbbing hardness of my member under the furs. "Spirits..." I say breathily, my eyes squeezing shut as I imagine what the oh-so-innocent Katara could be doing to make herself cry out my name in such a carnal manner.

My hand slides into my undergarments, grasping my cock as I envision her touching herself with gentle fluttering fingers. I imagine her warm brown skin contrasting to the moist, pink folds as her fingers settle on her most sensitive area. The delicious parting of her plump lips as she gasps in pleasure. 

As my fantasy deepens, I imagine myself hovering over her, swallowing my name as it rolls off her lips while I lightly breeze my fingertips over her skin. In reality, my eyes are squeezed tightly together and my hand pumps faster.

In my mind, I touch her in ways I’ve never allowed myself to. I kiss every inch of her cocoa skin, elicit sounds I've only dreamed of bringing to her lips. I take her soft and slow, the opposite of my normal style, and treat her like the princess she should be.

When I've grunted my way through my orgasm, I only briefly consider rising to clean myself off. Instead I just throw aside my undergarments. It's so bitterly cold I simply burrow under the furs provided to me and fall asleep thinking of the perfect girl on the other side of the wall beside me.


	5. Chapter 4

The morning is spent sending timid, blushing glances to Zuko through the flames as we pick through our bowls of stew to find the more edible items and avoiding the fish heads entirely. I'm off in my head, simultaneously thinking about what I imagined the prince of the Fire Nation doing to me, and pretending the event didn’t happen entirely. 

The day we spend exploring the small village. The more I learn of the Water Tribe, the more out of place I feel. They eat the meat of whales raw, they’re openly and unabashedly sexual, they seem to be completely at home in the cold, and aren't even a little annoyed by the braying of the Tiger Seals that make their home nearby. I spend a lot of time trying to avoid Sokka, but while I was trying to gnaw my way through some blubbered seal jerky, he approached me and asked if I would like to accompany him on a fishing trip. The ‘yes’ spilled out of my mouth before I had the proper time to think, but I couldn’t take it back after I saw the gleeful look on my older brother’s face.

Zuko hugs me before I step into the small wooden canoe and gives me a tight-lipped smile as he waves me off. Smiles aren’t something that are very common for Zuko anymore, though the few he has are usually reserved for me. Sokka explains how to use the fishing pole he's brought for me, then continues to talk about anything and everything. As he does, he inadvertently reveals that he's a terrible comedian, a bit sexist, and pushes the young boys to train way harder than he should. Though Amka painted a picture of a Southern Water Tribe where women are just as important and strong as men, Sokka seems to hold a different opinion of ‘women’s work’.

During a lull, when he's concentrating on spearing a fish, I simply bend one out of the water. I'm about to drop it into the basket when he pulls his spear back, causing me to lose my hold on the bubble of water, splashing Sokka and letting the fish go.

"Sokka!"

"Katara!" We shout each other's names at the same time. 

"Look, this is not the time to use your magic water-"

"It's called waterbending."

"Whatever!" Sokka stands, dripping. "It's stupid and this isn't the time for it!"

"Waterbending is NOT stupid! Mom died for this." I stand as well, furious. We're both too caught up in our anger to realize the canoe is moving.

"Exactly! Katara, Mom died so you could live, because you happen to be able to move some water with your mind! She died because of you."

"How dare you say that?! How dare you?!" I push Sokka and he stumbles out of the little canoe and onto a patch of ice. I follow him and begin pelting him with chunks of ice, picking them off the ground as I storm toward him. "Mom died because of Lord Sozin's insanity, trying to protect both of us! How could you even say it was my fault?" My tears are streaming and I fall to my knees. I hear the crash of water around me, but I don't look up.

"Katara..." Sokka's voice is wary. Good, I think. He should be.

"No. No, Sokka. Don't apologize. You meant that. It's okay, though, you're not my brother anyway. I'm not Water Tribe and you're not my brother." I’m tired of it here. I’m tired of pretending I fit in, I’m tired of trying to love this culture I was ripped away from. 

"Katara, shut up for a single second and look!" He points at something behind me and I turn, seeing a huge iceberg with the shadow of a boy and some large animal inside. I think he's dead, but then he opens his eyes. They glow blue, as do the arrows on his head and hands. I bend the ice apart, not expecting to be thrown back by a burst of air. A beam of blue light shines into the sky, the silhouette rising in the beam. When it's over, a boy who can't be more than twelve falls and slides down the ice. His eyes are closed once more, and he remains still.

I kneel next to him and pick up his head, checking for bleeding. All I find is blue arrow tattoos that disappear under the collar of his lightweight shirt. His eyes flutter open. "Come... closer..." His voice is croaky, weak, and I do as he says. "Will you go penguin sledding with me?"I drop his head, startled by the sudden volume of his voice and intensity with which his eyes open. 

"What? No!"

“Penguin sledding?” Sokka murmurs. I’m not quite sure what ‘penguin sledding is’ but I can almost hear the gears whirring in Sokka’s brain trying to figure out how it led this little kid to be frozen alive in a perfectly round iceberg. 

Uncle Iroh’s history lessons make their way to the forefront of my mind as I study the boy. His clothing, his tattoos. I struggle to believe what has to be true. "You're an airbender, aren't you?" I stand, backing away from the bald boy with the arrow tattoos. Tattoos, that, if I have not forgotten, I know that only master airbenders can receive. He rubs the back of his head where it clunked down onto the ice and stares at me with confusion in his eyes.

"Y-" He pauses and crinkles up his face. "Ah... ahh... CHOO!" The airbender flies fifteen feet into the air when he sneezes. He slides down the other side of the iceberg. Sokka and I exchange glances, our fight momentarily forgotten, before scrambling over the ice. The boy is pulling up the eyelid of a ginormous bison, it's closed mouth as long as I am tall. "Appa! Wake up, buddy!" I take in the arrows on the bison as it yawns. A flying bison. Once upon a time, every air nomad had one, before they were wiped out along with the nomads themselves.

"Um... what is that?" Sokka asks, an eyebrow raised.

"This is Appa, my flying bison!" The boy tells Sokka, smiling.

"Right, And this is Katara, my flying sister. Now I'm going home, where everything makes sense." Sokka stops in his tracks when he sees our boat is long gone.

"Appa and I can give you a ride if you need one. I'm Aang, by the way." Aang smiles as he pats Appa's nose. An airbender. An airbender with the mark of a master, something that has not been seen since the beginning of The Hundred Year War. This child, this little boy, surely he can't be who my every instinct is telling me that he must be. 

"You're the Avatar." My voice is a whisper. Aang looks shocked, then scared, then disappointed so fast I can hardly catch the emotions. As quick as I can, I freeze his hands and feet together, thinking only of having my best friend back to the way he was. "You're coming with me."

~~~

The Avatar is completely silent, though it's obvious he's confused. His age makes me feel off, a bit guilty. He's just a child, after all. His big gray eyes are full of innocence and disappointment as he watches Sokka and I argue about his fate.

"If you take him back to the Fire Nation the war will be over! We won't even have a chance." Sokka shouts, pacing the width of Amka's igloo. He keeps running his hands over his hair, his boomerang in one of them. It's something he does when he's stressed, I've gathered.

"Sokka, you don’t have a chance now! Fire Lord Ozai is too powerful, too insane. As soon as Ba Sing Se and the Northern Tribe fall, the rebellion is done for!” My brother flinches at my use of ‘rebellion’. But that’s all the war is; it’s a rebellion against the Empire of the Fire Nation. “Ozai is power-starved. He won’t stop until he’s crushed any and all resistance. He doesn’t care how many he loses, he doesn’t have to care.”

"And if you just hand over the Avatar, he won’t even have to! There won't be anything stopping them. Hope will be lost. This is your home, Katara, please." There's sadness in his eyes, clouded with disappointment and anger. I know Sokka expects me to just come home and be a water tribe girl again, but that's not who I am. I won't ever be that girl again.

"No, it isn't, Sokka. My home is that boat and that prince and-" I cut myself off as Zuko storms into the igloo. His scowl turns into a grin as he sees the bald boy behind Sokka and I, the smile widening as he looks at me. I feel my face flush red. "He's coming with us, Sokka. You don't understand. This is what we've been searching for for the last seven years! We can finally go home. Our home." In truth, where we were headed is the last place I would ever consider home. I perhaps wouldn't even call the ship home. But Zuko? He does. He longs for the Fire Nation, to be the crown prince yet again, to be the heir, as he believes he's destined to be. And he's my home.

Walking past my brother, I grab the Avatar by his shirt collar and pull him up. Zuko pushes him outside and hands him off to a few guards, who lead him to the ship. We stand a few paces away from my friend's igloo. "Are you sure you want to come with me? Back to Azula, back to my father?" His golden eyes lock with mine as he takes my hands in his. “You could stay, build a life here… the life,” he sighs. “The life you were always meant to have.”

I look away and watch the blue arrow on the back of Aang's head get smaller as he moves through the people of the Southern Water Tribe. I've spent so many long years searching for that blue arrow, all of it spent with Zuko. I can't imagine being without him, even if it means I have to sacrifice my family. Smiling, I look back at him. "I go where you go. Just like always."


	6. Chapter 5

The sun glitters off the ice as we sail away, the tribe becoming mere specks. Sokka's face keeps replaying in my mind as Zuko and I follow the Avatar on board, and it makes me sick.

Is this really the right thing? Fire Lord Ozai is a terrible person. Should we really give him the weapon he needs to completely destroy all remnants of peace the world has left? My mind says no, but each time I see Zuko's smiling face, overjoyed at being able to go home, my heart screams that the right thing is whatever keeps him happy.

But then again, Aang is just a child. That iceberg somehow froze him as a twelve-year-old, even though it was over 100 years ago that he disappeared. How could anyone hand him over to a psychopath like the Fire Lord in good conscience? Something tells me he won’t be treated anywhere near as well as I was.

"Katara." I turn from the view to see Zuko, his brow knitted with worry. "Come inside. You'll catch a cold." His large, pale hand wraps around my waist and pulls me to him. Confidence radiates from the prince; I haven’t seen him this way since before Ursa disappeared. Fire Lady Ursa was my saving grace in the palace. Spirits, she was Zuko’s too. She was the closest thing to a mother I had, and the only person I’ve ever witnessed talk down Ozai from his anger. Anger that was far too often directed at Zuko. 

"Zuko, what are you doing...?" My voice is a breath and my heart races, even though our parkas keep us inches apart. Zuko's lips twitch up on one side and the sight of the smirk makes me want to kiss him right there. I look around at the guards and crewmen on the deck, though, and I’m sure my worry over what they may think is evident on my face. 

"I'm the crown prince. What are they going to do if I want to keep you warm?" I smile softly as he leans down as if he were going to kiss me, but he falters and rests his forehead on mine instead. My hands drift up to grip his face and I run my fingers along the edge of his scar. I shiver at the memory of how he got it. If Ozai would do this to his own son… No, I need to stop thinking about this. 

"Zuko..." I murmur, mind letting my mind swim with visions of the prince baring himself to me instead. I feel his smile more than see it and he takes my hand and pulls me toward the small tower that holds his room. We climb up the metal stairs to the second floor, where we stop at the only door. Zuko opens it slowly, revealing the bare minimum that is so familiar to me. A small table with candles, his dual swords mounted above them. A fire nation banner above his bed, a red and gold rug on the metal floor. 

With a flick of his fingers, Zuko lights the candles. In the next instant, the door is closed and his bed is occupied by his long, strong body. "Come on, you're shivering." Reluctantly, I sit next to him, suddenly filed with guilt about how out of control I’ve let myself be the past few days. I've not sat on Zuko's bed with him since I was thirteen. Iroh had one of the women on the ship sit me down and explain that, as I get older, I will have different responsibilities. I couldn't do things that I did as a young child any longer, as my body and mind matured. I’ve lived my whole life with the knowledge that respectful young women are quiet and demure. Then, what, one day in the water tribe, and I’m flinging my under wrappings off and giving in to my carnal desires at the first available opportunity?

He grabs my braid and tugs gently. "I like your hair like this, by the way." My heart skips a beat at Zuko's fingers brushing my cheek as he tucks a loose curl behind my ear. Ever since that day we sparred, his touch has been electric on my skin, and I can't help but feel wrong about it. Even if it didn’t go against everything I was raised to believe was proper for us to have these feelings, he has a girlfriend, Mai. We visit her every three months and he writes to her every week. But here he is touching my cheek and complimenting my hair while we sit on his bed. "It's very pretty." My face heats up and I look away.

"My mom used to do my hair like this. It's traditional, I think. Gran Gran had her hair like this, too, and I remember Mom having something similar." As I talk about my mother and her mother before that, my hand travels up to my necklace. While we were in the South Pole, Gran Gran told me that it had been hers, given to her by a man in the Northern Water Tribe. When the Southern Water Tribe called for help, Gran Gran was one of the women who went to help repopulate the smaller tribe. When my mother met my father and he approached her about asking for Mom's hand, she gave him the necklace. It was untraditional, the man was supposed to carve the engagement necklace himself, but Gran Gran insisted. The last thing my mother ever did was pass it on to me, and it’s the only thing I have left of her and my life in the village. 

"Well, I like it. But I also like it down. It makes me want to run my hands through it." Zuko's pale skin flushes. "I-I mean, it just looks soft. Not that I look at your hair all the time, I just..." The prince trails off, his cheeks burning a bright red that is very unprincely of him, and I laugh.

"Idiot," I mumble and shove his arm. He exaggerates the effect my push has on him, stumbling off the bed, but it turns into a real fall somewhere in the middle. The sight of his long frame sprawled out on the floor takes my laugh into a full-blown snorting chortle.

He stands and tackles me against the bed. "You asked for it, you little punk!" He shouts as his hands find my sides and he begins to tickle me, a growing smile on his face as he listens to my shrieking laughter.

"Z-Zuko! S-stop! I c-can't breathe!" I shout between bouts of laughter as his hands travel over my body, finding all my most ticklish places. He knows them all by heart, I'm sure; he used to tickle me relentlessly when we were young. He'll never know how much I loved being so close to him, even as a child. Some things are simply better left unsaid, unknown. I also loved the way Mai looked when she would see us, especially after they started dating. Even though she was only twelve, she had an idea of what boyfriends and girlfriends were supposed to do together, and she knew that she and Zuko didn't do those things. Oh, how I loved the secret satisfaction I would get seeing her typical scowl deepen as her eyes watched Zuko and I play.

I try to shove Zuko off me, but he holds my hands above my head and one of his. "Surrender!" He shouts at me and I shake my head vigorously and shout that I never would back at him. My oceanic eyes lock with his golden ones and I finally take note of our position. One of his knees is placed between my thighs and my breasts are just barely brushing his chest. Our faces are inches apart and he has my hands pinned above my head. I am powerless. The increasingly familiar tug in my stomach returns and something in those golden eyes changes. "Surrender, Katara," he whispers. 

"I don't surrender. Waterbenders never give up." My breath hitches in my chest.

"Fine. You asked for it then." Zuko leans down and kisses my exposed neck, his free hand coming to rest on my jaw, tilting my head to the side. Gasps replace my laughter and echo in the small room. "Surrender," he says, his words hot against my skin. When I whisper no, he kisses a pattern onto my skin, his lips traveling from my neck to my collarbone, up to my jaw.

Zuko's lips brush mine, contact barely made. Just when he's about to lean down again, the loud clanging of metal on metal bursts through the room. The door is thrown open and a guard stands in the entryway, pausing only for a moment at the sight of his prince pinning the waterbending peasant onto his bed. A moment in which Zuko pushes himself away from me quicker than lightning and I find myself a bit hurt. The guard’s composure is quickly regained and he shouts, "Prince Zuko! The Avatar is escaping!"

Zuko and I rush out onto the deck and we’re met with the young Avatar fighting off the firebenders on Zuko's ship. The prince immediately goes into fighting mode. "Take him unharmed!" He shouts to his guards and I see them falter. That was a bad move, as now the airbender knows he is in no danger. I can see Zuko panicking and I watch as he gives out orders. Aang quickly makes his way toward the side of the ship, and without thinking it through, I run off after him. I can’t let him escape. "Katara, what are you-?" I can no longer hear Zuko's voice over the streaming of air as I dive into the freezing water.

The unbelievable cold is all I can think about as soon as the tips of my fingers touch the substance. ‘Spirits, that’'s cold,’ I think and begin swimming toward the last place I'd seen Aang on the ship. Sure enough, I see him on the side, preparing to leap. I gather all my strength and send a stream of water toward him, freezing it as soon as it touches the boy. Once I am sure he is secured to the ship, I use the last of my stamina to propel myself up using the water.

The last thing I see as I sputter and cough before blacking out is the guards melting the ice away from the ship and a defeated looking child.


	7. Chapter 6

The cold lasts for days. An unimaginable, bone-chilling cold and nothing can warm me. A fire is kept roaring in my room's furnace constantly, an extra pile of blankets always kept by it, in case I wish to add another to the five that I already have. Zuko is with me always and I know he does not sleep so that he can control his body temperature to try and keep me warm as he lays beside me.

People are always in and out of the room. We dock in the Earth Kingdom and retrieve a doctor. He always looks a bit afraid when he comes to see me. Uncle Iroh is told that I am hypothermic and that I need warm fluids and rest. I think he makes me tea every hour I’m awake after that.

Sometimes I lose consciousness and I always awaken to Zuko's concerned face. "How long was I asleep this time?" I ask, and he always replies a day or more. I begin to think that I will never be better, but the moment I do, I wish I hadn't.

"It was ridiculously irresponsible of you, Katara."

"Yes, Uncle Iroh." The old man has been giving me a lecture for the past half an hour, and I've only broken my fever last night. 

"Benders have limits, as you know, and combining that with jumping into freezing, icy waters..."

"I know, Uncle. I could have died. My body may not have been able to fight the hypothermia due to the exhausted state I had put it in overusing my bending."

"Exactly. You need to be more careful." Uncle's voice drones on and on as he repeats himself. Eventually, Zuko comes to rescue me, though I get the same speech from him as well. 

"I don't know what I would do without you, Tara." The prince tells me, as he finishes up scolding me. "I was so scared while you were sick. I hated the sight of you. Pale, your hair plastered to your face with sweat..." He gently pushes a lock of my hair behind my ear. "All I could think about was all the things I never told you, the things we never did."

I’m certainly not pale anymore, my face heats up with the mere implication of what we’ve never done. I suppose Zuko could be speaking of any number of things, but my mind hasn’t left that particular gutter in weeks. “I’m fine, Zuko. And I kept the Avatar from escaping. Everything worked out.” 

Looking into Zuko’s eyes, I think we both know how close we all were to it not working out at all.

~~~

The Fire Nation capital, Sozin, looms in the distance. In that city dwells everyone that has ever caused me or Zuko pain, but Zuko is convinced that his happiness resides there. His father had told him seven years ago that his honor would be restored and that he could come home the day he captured the Avatar and now that he has, he is happier than I've ever seen him.

On the journey to Sozin, Prince Zuko grows increasingly anxious and paranoid. He increases security on the Avatar nearly every day. He won’t let me sleep alone. And he spends hours at a time sitting in the boy’s cell or practicing his bending with Iroh or me. I worry that he’s going crazy.

While we sit in my chambers each evening, he tells me stories of his mother and of his father, though he grows sad when he thinks of Fire Lady Ursa. He was never really the same after she disappeared. I was seven, then, and he was nine. I remember he cried the whole day and Azula teased him incessantly. I stood up for him and she threw the Earth Kingdom doll that Uncle Iroh had gotten her at me. It had broken and she told her father that I had broken it. My punishment was to let Azula break all of my toys. But I didn't mind, because I had shifted her focus off of Zuko and onto me.

Zuko and I were always close. Azula hated it. She hated that I had some happiness at the palace. She hated that her mother treated me as her own. Ursa had always protected us, shielded us from Ozai, and even Azula, though Ursa’s daughter has a completely different brand of cruelty than her husband. After Ursa’s disappearance, I took over. I put myself in the spotlight so that Zuko could keep his peace. And now Zuko wants to go back to that place that was misery for the both of us. I will follow him, as always, but I worry that regaining his title as Crown Prince is not going to be everything he thinks it will be.

My anxiety has been growing as well, though mine stems from a very different place than Zuko’s. While Zuko obsesses over whether or not the Avatar will escape, I worry about what will become of him. And even, what is happening to him now.

The boy swears he only knows airbending and we have yet to see him demonstrate anything other than his native element, but still, we have his every limb chained to the floor. His wrists and ankles are chafed red from the restraints. After an incident where a guard was blown away by Aang’s breath, Zuko ordered him muzzled. He eats by being hand-fed by a guard from behind. I know the Fire Lord won’t kill him. He won’t risk the next Avatar being born into the Northern Water Tribe and having to find the Avatar all over again. Aang could live for another two hundred years. Avatar Kyoshi was 230 when she died. You would think I would rest easier knowing that he won’t be killed, but it just makes me scared for what he will endure instead. Zuko, though he is ruthless in his own right, could never hold a candle to Ozai’s insanity.

The slap of my bare feet on metal echoes in the hallway as I move toward the Avatar’s cell. Zuko has been sitting with him since breakfast, just watching. I peek through the window in the door at them. Both silent. Zuko with his back to me, sitting cross-legged on the floor. Aang on his knees, leaning his weight forward, the pressure on his wrist restraints. He looks up and makes eye contact with me. His big grey eyes are sad, hopeless. They’re familiar to me because they are the dejected eyes of an abused child. They are my eyes, from a time that was not so long ago. 

“Zuko,” the door creaks as I open it. There’s a screech of metal on metal as it scrapes across the floor. 

The prince doesn’t look at me. “What?” The word is a slap. He doesn’t like being interrupted when he’s with the Avatar. I believe he meditates on his destiny down here in the dark. Perhaps he thinks he’s staring his destiny in the face. 

“Zuko, I need to talk to you.” I must at least try to advocate for this child. To save him from Ozai. From Zuko, even.

There's a huff, and Zuko’s tall frame rises from the ground. He turns to me, eyes narrowed with annoyance, his scarred eye nearly disappearing. The prince follows me into the hall. 

I clear my throat, not sure where to begin. “Zuko… I wonder if, maybe, you’re being a little harsh on the avatar. He’s just a ki-” I’m cut off.

“He’s not just a kid. He’s the Avatar. We can’t underestimate him again.”

“Zuko, you have him muzzled. He’s 12! Can’t you just ease up a little bit?”

“I will not lose him. That child is the key to my honor. You know how important this is to me.” Zuko raises his voice, and it begins to echo around the hall. 

I can’t help it, my voice raises too. “You are the key to your honor, Zuko. You haven’t lost it yet but if you keep going this way, I fear you will.” My voice wavers, and I hold back the tears.

“Aagh!” Zuko shouts, and flames wink at his fingers. “Go away. You and Uncle are just the same. You won’t get in the way of this. I don’t want to see your face for the rest of the evening.” I open my mouth to object, but he stops me. “Now! That is an order from your prince. Leave my presence.” He turns from me, a scowl on his face, and reenters the Avatar’s cell. 

I wipe my face and make my way up to my room. All I want is what's best for Zuko, but I fear that what's best for him is something he will never allow to happen. What's best for Zuko -and maybe the world, too- is that the Avatar never makes it to the Fire Nation.

~~~

The night is dark when I leave the room the next evening. Zuko had tried to come apologize this morning, but I wouldn’t let him. It wouldn’t make a difference, his apology would be empty. Nothing would change. 

Dressed in black, I make my way to Zuko’s door. I sigh, my fingers grazing the cold metal of the handle. My very being is torn, doing this. But I have to believe that this is what’s right. I reach around my neck and untie my mother’s necklace. The stone of the pendant is smooth, pale against my fingers. My neck feels bare without the weight of it. A few tears drip onto the floor as I wrap the ribbon around the handle for Zuko to find when he wakes. 

I don’t want to leave him. I don’t think I could stand by and watch him turn into his father either. 

The walk to the Avatar’s cell seems long. I slip through the ship silently, avoiding the crewmen I can. I don’t have a choice when I approach the cell door, though. The men look at me quizzically, one even questions my presence in the brig at this late hour. I give each of the two guards a swift punch, knocking them out for a couple of minutes at the least. Entering the cell, the grey-eyed boy looks at me cautiously. I whisper to him that I am here to help as I unlock his chains. "Don't scream and follow me," I tell him, untying his gag and taking his hand. I pull the Avatar to the deck of the ship and together, we stand on the edge as guards come rushing out. In the tower, I see a light come on in Zuko's window. And then we jump.

We hit the warm water feet first, but I bend the ocean around us, creating an air pocket big enough for our torsos. I know that I won't be able to do it for long, but all I need is for us to be under long enough that those aboard Zuko's ship presume us long gone.

"Why are you helping me?" Aang asks as I look up at the ship. Through the water, I can see distorted images of guards looking over the side for us. I see Uncle Iroh in his sleep clothes and several blasts of fire that can only have come from an angry Zuko.

"Because it's what's right." My words are soft and tears threaten to spill over as Zuko joins his uncle at the side of the ship. "It would mean very bad things, were you delivered to the Fire Nation." The ship begins to move again, though this time away from the coast. When I can no longer see them, I bring our bubble to the surface. "But now, we have to swim there. Then we can find our way to the North Pole. You can learn waterbending there and it's the only place the Fire Nation ships can't reach." I'm rambling now as we swim toward land. That is until we're nearly squashed by a flying bison.

"Appa!" Aang immediately climbs onto the beast, though I stay in the water, wary. Aang hugs one of the bison's horns before climbing down to give me a hand up. I refuse it and crawl into the saddle on the bison's back on my own. "So. You were saying something about the North Pole?"

~Zuko~

I let out a strangled yell, my fingers grasping my hair. How could she do this to me? How? I wanted to spend my life with her, for her to be my Fire Lady once father died, but instead, she left and took the Avatar with her, leaving me without even the ability to regain my honor and return home.

"Prince Zuko, perhaps you should rest a-" I cut Uncle off with a glare.

"I will not rest, Uncle! How could you suggest that?! I will not rest until I find them both." Uncle recoils at the anger in my eyes, but he sees the anguish there as well, I know he does. He always sees it. Leaving him there, I march up the steps to the bridge, where the captain looks at me warily out of the corner of his eye. He is ignored, my attention only on the topographic map of the world in front of me. Now that I know the Avatar was underwater all these years, frozen in time, I have an actual search. And now Katara is with him. I may not know the boy, but I know Katara. "Set course for Ember Island," I order. The Avatar will be headed for the North Pole, surely, but there's something I must do first.

~Katara~

I'm starting to regret my decision. Aang insists on multiple pit stops around the world to ride giant Koi fish and such. He prattles on excitedly about everything he wants to do, practically ignoring my insistence that we must get to the North Pole, the only place that the Fire Nation has yet to touch. No, he wants to go to Kyoshi to ride a giant fish.

"I don't think this is good anymore..." Aang says nasally, holding his nose as he picks up a piece of mold. I think it used to be bread.

"After 100 years, I don't think so, no," I say and empty his food bag into the ocean. "Make a stop at Ember Island, it's near here. I know where we can get food." It is dangerous, going to the island, but it has to be done. Aang will have to stay in the mountains while I go into town, of course.

The island comes up sooner than I expected and I take in a sharp breath. The last time I had been here was the summer before Fire Lady Ursa disappeared. After that, we never returned, and I never saw a kind moment from the Fire Lord again. Appa flies into the mountains and lands soundlessly, which I find shocking. I tell Aang to stay with the bison in the mountains, before heading off into the center of town with a coin purse in my hand.

I purchase some fruit and bread, as well as a bag of jerky. I’m not quite sure what animal the meat is from, but it smells good and didn't cost too much. Afterward, I simply wander the stalls, walking past jewelry and clothes, by instruments and handbags. If I were here with Zuko, I could have gotten anything I wished to have, but now I must restrain myself. Even with only buying the minimal amount of food, the small purse I have is nearly empty. Sighing, I head back out of town and into the mountains once more.

~Zuko~

My ship docks at the island and I am the first to leave. I’m angry and I’m horny, thinking of all the things I’ll do to Katara once I find her, all the things we never got the chance to do before she left me, all the things I know she wanted and that she knows I wanted too. The feelings cloud my judgment, however, and I need to clear them in order to properly track down the waterbender and the Avatar. I stroll along the streets, keeping my head down until I get to my destination. A small, but luxurious, house that belongs to the family of one of my sister's closest friends.

I knew she would be there because her family has a strict schedule. They stay here each winter, the same week each time. I don't bother checking to see who is home before I knock on the door, though I should have, given my current banished state. But I am near positive that it will just be her. After a moment, I knock again and I hear a large sigh from the other side, causing me to smirk. The door opens. "Hello, Mai. May I come in?"


	8. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: Dubious Consent, Zuko is an ass

The dark-haired girl steps aside, shock glinting in her eyes, though her face remains passive. "What are you doing here, Zuko?" She asks, closing the door behind me and leading me up the stairs to her room. "If either of my parents had been here, you would've been imprisoned. You're banished, in case you've forgotten."

I turn on my acting skills, knowing she still has feelings for me, though she's probably rather angry for the way I broke up with her. "I know, Mai, but I had to see you! I... I missed you, and it was stupid of me to break up with you." I’d written her a letter, the day we found the Avatar. The day after I had heard Tara moaning my name in that igloo. It had been short, to the point. Definitely not a very polite way to end things with someone. I had felt bad, but I knew I wanted my water tribe girl. I knew she was the only one who I wanted by my side. 

I take a deep breath and look down, only a bit disappointed in myself. I am far too angry to have any real conscience. "Please don't make me leave. I will be gone by morning. I just had to see you, if only for a little while."

Mai's expressionless face has softened by the time I look up at her with false sheepishness. "Why did you have to see me?" She monotones, but I see a glimmer of hope in her eyes, which expands to a smile gracing her lips as I tell her that I still feel for her, that I love her, in fact. She has no idea that the thought makes me sick. "Oh, Zuko," her words are filled with love and I refrain from laughing as I lean in to kiss her.

My lips move against hers and I grasp her jaw. She pulls away to give me a smile and drag me up the stairs to her bedroom. I kiss her again and start walking her back until her legs hit the bed. Laying Mai down, I begin to pull up her dress. She pauses, but I don't give her time to say something, pressing my lips to hers again. If she truly wants to stop me, she will. It appears she doesn't, as she tugs on my hair to pull me closer. "Mai..." I moan, acting still. My body responds to her touch, sure, but my mind... My mind is near revolted. I just need to get this over with so I can get the thought of sex out of my head; get Tara out of my head. She pulls up my shirt and runs her hands along my back, down to my butt. She pauses at the waistband of my pants but continues anyway, gripping the flesh and pulling my hips toward hers.

"Zuko, I... I've never done this before," Mai breathes as I move her hair out of the way and kiss her neck roughly, leaving a mark. Her voice is breathy and full of pleasure.

"I'll be gentle, I promise," I whisper against her skin, though I know full well that I won't. All she's good for is a quick, rough shag, then I'll be back on the ship and headed toward the North Pole. My hands brush against Mai's inner thighs and she gasps, her hands sliding to my bare shoulders. Her eyes are squeezed shut already. Katara would have looked me in the eyes the whole time I touched her. She'd be scared, uncertain of whether she should, but positive she wanted to, and she'd have her eyes on mine the entire time I pleasured her, the entire time crying my name. Growling, I pull off Mai's dress, exposing her wrappings. I rip through the top, releasing her small breasts. I’m fully aware that if I cared to stick around she would lay into me about ripping the fabric, but in my anger, I don’t particularly care about what she wants. The mounds are barely big enough to fit into my palm, unlike Katara's, whose breast my entire hand can barely even cover. I need to stop thinking about Katara. That's why I'm here, to forget about her enough to find her and the Avatar. 

I tear through her lower bindings as I suck on one of Mai's pink nipples, her eyes still squeezed tightly shut, her brow furrowed as she lets out small gasps of air. My fingers brush against her core, causing a moan to escape her thin lips. She whines as I slip off the bed to remove my remaining clothes, though it only takes a second. Positioning myself with one hand while rubbing her clit with the other so she won't expect it, I slam into her. She is tight, so tight it nearly hurts, and I know I have hurt her. Mai cries out and a couple of tears fall from her eyes. Looking down at my cock as I slide out of her, I see blood.

I know that a girl losing her virginity isn't supposed to bleed and that she wouldn't if she was ready, physically. Proper lubrication and being relaxed makes it as enjoyable as it can, though it is still uncomfortable to begin with. But Mai is bleeding and she is crying, and I don't care. I’ve never really cared about the girls I’ve been with. I’ve never wanted to. The last time I cared about hurting a girl was my first time when Father bought me that girl. I’d taken her virginity as much as she’d taken mine, and it was clumsy and awkward. I’d hated every second of it, I hated the idea of why she was there in the first place. But it was tradition, so I had to. I had tried to make it better for her, but she still cried the whole time. I’d never told anyone, but I had cried that night too. I cared then, but caring is far from my mind now. 

Shaking my head to rid myself of the memory, I continue to ram into Mai, whispering to her so she thinks that this is what gentle is. "I love you so much," I tell her, between breaths. I tell her that it'll get better and that she feels wonderful, and I know that it will and that it does, but I can't help but feel like a no-good rotten liar with each pump of my hips. I last just long enough for her cries of pain to become soft moans of pleasure, pulling out and spilling myself onto her stomach.

I lay with her for a while, murmuring sweet, false, nothings to her until I see the sun begin to set in the window. I make my excuses and leave, pulling on my pants feeling disgusted and guilty.

"What have I done?" I whisper to myself as I leave the house.

~Katara~

I’m positive the annoyance is clear on my face as the airbender helps me load the meager supplies I was able to buy onto the bison. He may be the Avatar, but savior of the world or not, I really struggle not to freeze him in another iceberg myself. 

“And that’s when Kuzon and I tricked the poachers into thinking the mother dragon had come back!” Aang has been telling me about his Fire Nation friend and their adventures trying to find a dragon nest since I returned. His enthusiasm is grating. You never would have known he’d spent the past week chained up in a cell if it weren’t for the marks on his wrists. As fascinating as stories of a real-life dragon may be, I just wish the kid would read the room a bit. 

“Okay,” I say, interrupting him. “That’s the last of it, now let’s go.”

“Are you sure we can’t camp here tonight? I’m exhausted!” He asks, slumping down and sliding down Appa’s leg. 

“Yes, Aang, I’m sure.” The exasperation seeps through my voice and into the air. “We are still in the Fire Nation. Anybody down in that village would have your head in a second if they knew who you were. We can find camp later, but for now, we just need to start heading North.” The kid sulks as he hops back onto his bison, giving a sullen ‘yip yip’ to get him into the air. 

As we rise over Ember Island, I look down at it and sigh. So many memories here. I fear I’ll never have a good memory again. We circle over the harbor and I count the ships. One, two, three, four… The fourth ship is one I can never forget. “Shit!”

“What’s wrong?” 

Fuck, fuck, fuck. I scramble up to the front of Appa’s saddle. “Go, fast! We gotta get out of here!” Spirits, I can’t believe he tracked us so easily! We’re never going to make it to the North Pole! Zuko knows me too well, he’ll catch us and then… I don’t know what then. I wipe away a tear, “We need to get to the Water Tribe as fast as possible. No stopping tonight.”

At this point, I only know two things. First, leaving Zuko was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. Second, he will never stop looking.

~Zuko~

The bricks in the road are uneven; they give me something to focus on as I make my way towards the docks. Coming here was stupid. I’m stupid for thinking this would do anything but make me feel like shit. I hate when Uncle is right.

Someone passes me and there’s a flash of light, a woosh of a flame igniting. I look up to see the lamplighter illuminating the path. I look higher, the sun is nearly gone. There’s a movement, a shadow that passes in front of the last bit of the sun. I blink, nearly missing it, but there it is. The fucking bison.

Katara had told me about this creature, she’d said it could fly, but I didn’t believe her. No one’s seen a flying bison in a hundred years, my great-grandfather wiped them out during the comet with the rest of the Air Nomad civilization. I should have believed her. Fuck. Sparks fly at my fingertips and I race forward. I’ve got to follow them. Maybe I can get to them before the North Pole. Spirits, they were here the whole time? Fate is a cruel mistress, to put everything I want in my palm just to yank it away and dangle it out of arm’s reach. I’m beginning to think happiness is not something I’m destined to have.

The metal clangs as I run up the boardwalk to the deck of the ship. “Anchors up, now!” The crew scurries to follow orders and I storm up to the bridge. “Follow that fucking bison, do not lose them.” The captain nods and I retrieve my spyglass. Focusing it on the bison, the last bit of light in the sky allows me to just barely make out the shadows of the two figures riding it. 

My chest heaves and smoke comes out of my nose. A habit I get from my uncle, I think. They don’t call him the Dragon of the West for nothing. Like magic, his familiar footsteps sound behind me as soon as I think of him. 

“Prince Zuko, can we speak?” He clears his throat, tugging on his beard. “Privately?” My eyes flash as I turn to look at him, but he doesn’t shy away like anyone else on this ship would. Uncle is long used to my outbursts. 

“There’s nothing you can say to me, Uncle.”

“Nephew, I just think you should reconsider-”

“I don’t care what you think!” Flames flicker at my fingertips as my anger rises. “I will find the Avatar again. I will capture him. And I will get her back. Whatever it takes, Uncle.” I step forward, closing in on the old man. Leaning down into his face, my voice falls to a whisper, “Whatever it takes. And there’s nothing you can say to stop me.” 

I don’t wait to see the disappointment on his face before walking away. I know what’s right. I know what’s mine. Nothing will stop me from getting my hands on what rightfully belongs to me. Nothing.


	9. Chapter 8

~Sokka~

My arms and back ache; I had been rowing all day. Walking across that small mountainous island had been a bit too much of a break, and my muscles are jelly after the strenuous journey to the next island. Kyoshi Island, I think it’s called. 

I stretch my arms above my head before pulling my kayak further up the beach and start looking through my belongings. I’ll have to go into the village before I keep going. I’ve gone through most of my food already, the past four days of travel have used up everything but a couple of pieces of Gran Gran’s blubbered seal jerky. 

“Alright,” I say, to no one but the night air, “Sleep, and then food in the morning.” I roll out my bedroll and lay down, doing my best to get comfy as the moon rises. It’s been five days since Katara and that bastard prince took that Avatar kid. Four days since I left to go find my dad. I hope the village is doing okay without me, but they need to know that the Avatar is alive and that the Fire Nation has him. Any day now and they should be getting to Sozin, and who knows what the Fire Lord was going to do with the kid. 

It could be anything, and the possibilities swirl around my head as I drift off to sleep.

~~~

“Wake up!” 

“Aagh!” I shoot up, grabbing my boomerang from underneath me and stumbling into a battle stance. I’m surrounded by green-clad ladies in elaborate makeup, and relax a bit, allowing myself to rub the sleep out of my eyes. It’s still dark out, but the sun was beginning to show over the horizon.

“Drop your weapon,” one of the girls speaks up, the one whose shouts had woken me. “State your business. Kyoshi Island has no interest in dealing with outsiders.” She’s the leader, I think. She’s got that kind of feel about her.

“Sorry, ladies. I didn’t mean to intrude. I needed to rest and refuel so that I can inform my father that the Avatar has been found and that he’s with the Fire Nation. It’s very important.” 

“We don’t have anything to do with the war. You may purchase food from our merchants but you must leave before nightfall. Kyoshi will stay neutral.” With that, the group disappeared and I’m left in the growing daylight, alone. 

~~~

The village of Kyoshi is small, like mine. A few merchants, but mostly just community. People helped each other get what they need to live. It’s nice and reminds me of home. Those dolled up lady warriors, though? Not like home at all, and I can’t say I appreciate their rude awakening this morning. 

“Two fish, please!” The small elderly woman behind the fish stand begins wrapping up two dried fish, carefully folding the brown paper around the animal. 

“So,” A voice sounds behind me and I jump a few feet in the air, a decidedly unmanly squeal escaping my chest. A young woman stands before me, hands on her hips. She surveys me harshly, though a laugh hides in her eyes. She thinks I’m foolish. 

“The Avatar is real, huh?” The woman steps forward, toe to toe with me. Her blue eyes are so clear I can see myself in them, and I swallow harshly. 

“Uh, yeah. My sister and I found him.” I try to step back, but the fish stand is behind me, and there’s nowhere for me to go. “The Fire Nation has him though,” I don’t mention that they have Katara too. She’s long been brainwashed. “And I need to tell my father, he’s a warrior of the Southern Water Tribe, and he needs to know the war will soon be over, one way or another.”

“The Avatar hasn’t been seen in over 100 years. Why would anyone believe that he’s back?”

Growing frustrated, I step forward, looking down on this willful little girl. “You don’t have to believe me.” I look into her eyes and finally recognize her to be that lady warrior who woke me up this morning. “ Kyoshi isn’t involved in the war, remember? You feel pretty strongly about that last time I checked.”

“You have no idea what I feel strongly about, asshole!” Before I can blink, there’s a sharp pain in my jaw, and I’m alone with the fish merchant again.

“Spirits,” My words are a whisper, and I look to the old merchant. “She’s amazing. What’s her name?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, sorry for the late upload! This week has been crazy for me and writing has been on the back burner a bit. I hope you enjoyed this super short Sokka filler chapter!


	10. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I am SO sorry for how late this update is. I will be doing my best to get out the regularly scheduled chapter this Friday.

~Katara~

It’s been a full day since we left Ember Island, and we have not rested yet. We haven’t seen Zuko’s ship in several hours, but I still hang over the back of the bison’s saddle, eyes on the horizon. The sun has begun to set again and soon I won’t be able to see the ship even if it does catch up to us. Aang doesn’t think they will; he has steered us towards the mountains around the Western Air Temple rather than directly north, thinking if we skirt around the islands then Zuko won’t think to follow us that direction. 

I think he just wants to see one of the Air Temples. He doesn’t quite believe me when I tell him that there aren’t any Air Nomads anymore, and I’m pretty sure he half expects to find a bustling community of people keeping his culture alive, if not actual benders. I don’t know how to tell him that Zuko and I visited the temples first when we began searching for the Avatar nearly a decade ago and saw the destruction for ourselves. 

“Hey, why is there steam coming out of that mountain?” 

“What?” I look up from the horizon, having gotten a bit lost in my thinking. 

“Down there, to the left. There’s a mountain island; it’s steaming.” My knees scrape across the hard leather of the saddle as I crawl to the front of the bison. Moving while flying really freaks me out, and I’m careful to never lose contact with the surface beneath me, scared that I could fly off at any moment. 

My eyes follow the Avatar’s finger as he points down toward the ocean, finding the island prison Boiling Rock. “That’s Boiling Rock. A Fire Nation prison.” 

“Why is it called Boiling Rock?” 

“It’s a volcano, but a lake has formed on top of it. The heat from the volcano makes the lake water reach near-boiling temperatures. It’s the most secure prison in the world because of it; the prison is in the middle of the lake.” Disinterested in the prison, I turn around to lean against the side of the saddle and watch the sunset. The kid was full of questions. I get he’s been asleep for the past one hundred years, but it really is like hanging around a toddler. Not that I have much experience with twelve-year-olds either, though.

Aang is quiet for a few minutes, which is rather uncharacteristic for him. After a moment, I turn to look at him again, finding him staring down at the prison. “What kind of people need to be imprisoned in such a dangerous place?” 

“Traitors, prisoners of war, these days.” It’s an off-handed answer, the information was inconsequential. It didn’t matter, not really. “Ozai built it before Zuko was born; no one’s ever escaped. Why?” 

Another quiet moment before Aang responds. “Traitors… like you?” He looks at me with his big grey eyes, his typical dopey doe-eyed look replaced with one of genuine concern. I stiffen at his question and his look. 

“It doesn’t matter,” I snap, turning away from him again. “As I said, no one has ever escaped it. It’s a pointless thing to worry about.” 

This time the quiet spans a long enough time that the sun finishes setting. We’re illuminated only by the moon, and I bask in the power the moon spirit, Tui, lends me as he lends all waterbenders under his light. Then Aang speaks again, and the moment is ruined, because he informs me he’s going to Boiling Rock to help the prisoners escape and is gone, off on his glider. 

~~~

Appa groans quietly as I leave him at the beach to climb up the rocky hill to join the Avatar at the lake’s edge. I have to say, I agree with the bison. This is a bad idea. I repeat my thought in a whisper when I reach him, tacking on that this was an impossible, pointless task liable to get us killed. He ignores me and creeps forward, steam encompassing him almost immediately. 

“Aang, we need to leave.” The steam is thick and suffocating. I struggle to breathe as I follow the young airbender deeper into the fog, closer to the lake. 

“I just need to see,” Aang answers, avoiding my eyes. He focuses his gaze at the lake, and I bend a bit of the steam away, gulping in the thinner air greedily before allowing it to close in on me again.

Aang looks at me, finally, as the steam returns, and his eyes hold a spark that tells me I won’t like what he has in mind. He asks me if I can bend the water away from the floor of the lake, and I was right. I don’t like it at all.

We argue back and forth for quite a while, but I know he won’t give up. He’ll hurt himself if I don’t help, so I find myself working to keep a boat of ice from melting as we sail across the boiling lake. I’m sweating, and not just from the heat and steam. This is a bad idea, I think again. 

Finally, we are on the opposite shore, and I can let go of the water. There’s a sizzle as the ice instantly melts, dissipating into the lake water.   
The metal walls of the prison are thick and tall. It’s easy to see why no one has even made it to the lake during an escape. Aang airbends us to the top of the watchtower, and I don’t see how we could have gotten anywhere high enough to see into the courtyard if he hadn’t. 

It’s a state of the art facility, Boiling Rock. That’s what they say anyway. It may operate with the finest Fire Nation technology, but when you’re experienced with the realities of being a second class citizen in the Fire Nation, the age-old signs of cruelty are evident anywhere you care to look. It’s evident in the bloodstains on the far wall, the whips on the hip of each guard, and the wounds on the wrists and faces of the line of chained up prisoners assembled int he courtyard.

A small group of guards- five of them, one for every two prisoners- stands before the lineup, and I can see the malice on their faces. I know whatever is going to happen is not something Aang should be seeing, but he refuses to turn away. 

“A bunch of scum here, Lee,” one guard says to another as he walks up the line, scowling at each of the prisoners. “Traitors and Earth Kingdom trash.” A glob of spit lands on the face of a prisoner who looks to be Fire Nation. He must be the traitor. 

“Why would they let themselves be treated like that? They outnumber the guards, they should fight back!” Aang whispers to me, voice cracking with indignation. I struggle not to scoff at his naivete, opting instead for heavy silence. 

“Scum doesn’t even begin to cover it, Aizo.” The other guard, Lee, I assume, now approaches the prisoners, though he stops in front of an Earth Kingdom woman and leers at her. A shiver runs down my spine. “You lot thought you could ‘liberate’ a colony, hm? Destroy Fire Nation property and get away with it?” Lee moves in closer to the female prisoner. “Well, now you are the property of the Fire Nation, and we may destroy you as we wish.” 

“We have to do something, Katara!” the boy moves forward, but I grab his tunic and pull him back.

“Are you nuts? You can’t just rush in there without a plan.”

“I can’t just let these innocent people be treated like this! You heard them, they just wanted the Fire Nation out of their town! Now they’re being beaten in a prison; being treated like slaves!”

“And what do you think you’ll be able to do? What about the people who are here for a reason? How are you going to pick and choose which people to save, which people to condemn? What will you do with them once you’ve got them out? We’re in the middle of the ocean.”

Aang stands up, opening his glider. “I don’t know! But it’s my fault they're here, so I have to do something!” With that, he jumps off the tower and lands in the courtyard behind the guards. 

He shouts, blasting air at Lee and Aizo, knocking them to the ground. There’s no time for him to block the whip of one of the other guards, and I hear him exclaim in pain. “Spirits help me,” I mutter, and flip over the watchtower roof, sliding down the cool metal and landing roughly. I reach for the water in the skein at my hip and send it slamming into the back of a guard’s head. 

Aang is surrounded by three of the guards, and he’s struggling. I move to help him, only to be met with a blast of fire that knocks me back against the wall of the tower. I’m out of practice and used to Zuko’s fighting style anyway. I’m not accustomed to fighting to the death, and it seems that’s what these guards have planned.

Water lifts me up, I’m back on my feet. My chest twinges and I feel the burn but don’t allow the pain to overtake me. My vision blurs at the edges and I’m encasing the guard in a ball of water, lifting her up. She struggles to breathe in the water, and I hold her there until I heat the Avatar shout. My eyes are torn off the guard and find the boy in the fray. The prisoners have scattered, but more guards have come into the courtyard and they’re all focused on Aang. 

He jumps, tries to dodge, but he’s not trained in combat. He only has Air, and while that throws the guards off, they outnumber him. I toss the guard aside and she gurgles, struggling to breathe in air. I leave her and run for the bald-headed boy, readying a water whip, but I’m stopped by another burst of fire, this one I’m able to dodge, but I can’t help Aang and fear begins to cloud my mind. 

The wind picks up, but I barely notice. Water meets fire and there’s a burst of steam. I try to keep Aang in my sight, but I’m on the ground again, a stream of fire barely missing my head. My skin is overhot, my vision blacks for a second. When it returns there’s a blue light and the courtyard is torn apart by gales of wind faster than I’ve ever seen. The attacks stop and there are men screaming. Fear is thick around me, and then I see him. His eyes and tattoos glow blue, and he’s more powerful than I’ve ever seen him. The shingled roof of the prison begins to tear off and fly through the air. 

It’s terrifying and awe-inspiring. Guards are lifted into the air. I don’t see where they go after that. 

Eventually, the winds calm. Aang lowers to the ground, the light goes out. He falls, unconscious, and I run to him. Maybe, just maybe, he has what it takes. Maybe there’s hope.


	11. Chapter 10

~Zuko~

I lost them. That blasted bison is much faster than it appears and though we stayed with them for several hours we fell behind in the small hours of the morning, losing them completely by midday. I can’t believe I lost them. 

My back hurts from the hunch it’s been in the past few hours, a result of my position bent over the world map in the bridge. I ignore it, as I do all my pain. Pain seems to be something that does nothing but grow for me these days. I know they’re going to the North Pole. They must be. It’s either there or Ba Sing Se, the only two places left untouched by the Fire Nation. Tara would never go to the great walled city of the Earth Kingdom. Not right off, anyway. No, her instinct would be to seek the help of her own people. 

“Prince Zuko, I’m sorry to interrupt.” Then don’t, I wish to spit at the crewman, but I hold my tongue. “We’ve received a messenger hawk from Admiral Zhao. He requests an audience with you in the port town of Yu Pin.” Speaking of one’s own people…

I cannot possibly fathom what Zhao could want, other than to antagonize me. The man is near as obsessed with the Avatar as I am, though he loves to rub in my face that I will never find him. He always has, even when I was young. It’s no wonder Father promoted him to Admiral. 

“Send word back that he won’t be seeing me. I’m far too busy.” 

The crewman nods in a hurry and scurries off. I take a deep breath and straighten my back, looking away from the map for the first time in an hour. The bridge has been my home for the past day, but at this point I need food, and I suppose I should apologize to Uncle as well. The captain knows to head for the North Pole. It’s out of my hands now. 

The metal floor of the ship clangs as I walk down the hall. I’m reminded of how many times I’ve walked this path with Tara; she would always flit around me, trying to cheer me from my sour mood, often by teasing me. She was the only one who made me feel better when laughing at me, though the memory is tinged with sadness now. Or anger. I’m not really sure anymore. 

When I reach Uncle’s quarters, I knock, before walking in. “Uncle,” I say, finding him drinking tea and pining over a pai sho board. A typical evening for him. “I wanted to apologize for my harsh words.” The words are heavy, and I clear my throat. Swallowing my pride was not something I did for many people. “Also, I need to inform you I denied a summons from Admiral Zhao. I’m sure you’ll hear about it from your army buddies soon enough and I did not want you to be shocked.”

It was me who shocked him, as I knew I would. It’s preferable he hears from me though. “Nephew… that is very unwise. Admiral Zhao is a very high ranking member of the Fire Nation military. It is dishonorable to deny him if he has requested your presence.” 

I take a slow breath and clench my fist. “I do not have time to chit chat with the Admiral, Uncle. You know that.” The old man strokes his beard. I know he is considering his words, choosing how to tell me I am doing the wrong thing. Seems to me that’s all he does recently.

“Prince Zuko you have a duty to your people. When you are Fire Lord you will have to find time for many meetings you feel you do not have room for in your schedule.” 

He was right, of course. I nod, but as I turn to leave, I say “If. If I become Fire Lord.” It was no longer a guarantee. It hadn’t been for many years. 

~~~

The trip to Yu Pin is a short one, and we arrive by dawn. I scowl the whole way. The expression was permanently affixed to my face whenever I see Zhao. Uncle is much better at hiding how he feels about the man. Most people are, actually. I’m not sure there’s a person in the world who genuinely likes the ass except my father and some of his generals. They’re cut from the same cruel cloth. 

The Admiral meets us on the docks, greeting us with a bow and a smirk. He oozes false hospitality and the pit in my stomach grows. 

Uncle and I follow him to the local manor, which Zhao seems to have claimed as his for the time being. Yu Pin is one of the newer colonies, and it’s a pastime of Zhao’s to terrorize the new citizens for a bit. He sits upon his throne and welcomes us more officially. 

“Prince Zuko, General Iroh. It is an honor to have you here. I hope you will accept my current accommodations; they’re a bit rough.” I had no doubt they were, with Zhao’s reputation. I stay silent and my uncle replies with his typical grace. 

Eventually, we’re led to a dining hall and the conversation becomes more casual. For the most part, I pick at my food, thinking of all the time being wasted, the distance being put between me and my destiny. 

“Prince Zuko I’m sure you’re pleased to hear the rumors of the Avatar being found.” I spit out my roasted komodo chicken. 

“Uh, yes. We’re following the reports closely.” Fuck, fuck, fuck. 

“We had heard that it was you who had found him, but it seems that is not the case. Surely you would not have let him go. Though you’re without your little water bender pet. Perhaps she’s babysitting the Avatar while you’re away?” I want to wipe those shitty sideburns off his smug face. 

My nails bite into my palm, and I fight to avoid smoke rising from them and giving me away. “She’s not a pet. And she’s none of your business Zhao.” My words are venom. 

“Let us all calm down. Perhaps some tea?” Uncle shoots a pointed look to the nearest servant. “Jasmine tea for us all, please.” Zhao and I both ignore him. 

The Admiral chuckles and gives me a smile. “Of course not. Forgive me for encroaching on your private business. We’re all fully aware of the peasant’s purpose on your ship.” There’s no stopping the smoke now. “I do wonder where she is, though. I do enjoy seeing her.” 

“Prince Zuko…” Uncle’s voice is a warning that comes far too late. 

My hands burn embers into the wooden table as a stand, slamming them down onto it. “You dare disrespect her in front of me?” The words are met with yet another chuckle from Zhao and his condescension burns me. “Agni Kai.” 

“Excuse me?” Indignation laces his voice. 

“By disrespecting her you disrespect me. I challenge you to an Agni Kai. You can officially say goodbye to your honor at sunset.” At that, I storm from the room. 

~~~

Uncle, surprisingly, does not attempt to talk me out of it. He knows it would be a waste of energy. 

I kneel before him on the field, the traditional shawl draped over my shoulders. My hair in a traditional top knot, golden bands below my deltoids. “Do not forget your basics, Prince Zuko. Zhao is arrogant; he will forget them in an attempt to be flashy.” I nod at the advice, then set my mouth and turn. 

The shawl falls from my shoulders as I stand to face Zhao. He grins, sure of his victory and we get into stance. The gong rings and we begin. 

Flames fly, and Zhao and I immediately begin playing our game. He gains and I fall back, then I push forward, forcing him away. We’re well matched. 

I breathe. Attempt to remember my training. Fire shoots from my fist. I disperse a counter-attack from Zhao. Struggle to keep myself rooted, centered. I blink, and for a moment I remember sparring with Katara. My concentration breaks and I stumble. 

A laugh from Zhao as he takes advantage of my weakness. He leaps forward, foot raised in preparation to sweep it down over me. Fire is thrown from the appendage. Zhao is fast but I am faster. I roll on my back, kicking my leg up as well, pushing myself under the older man. I hook my foot around his leg and bring him slamming down. 

I rise before him, and fire shot after shot from my fists. Eventually, I stand over him, primed to strike. He eggs me on, and I bend but do not hit him. Instead, I lean forward, eyes blazing. “Dare to disrespect me again and I will not show mercy. You are lucky I show it to you now.”

I turn, leaving my opponent behind. I hear him rise and Uncle shouts at him not to do anything dishonorable. I don’t look to see what he meant.


	12. A Note

Readers-

I wanted to apologize for the few weeks I've been AWOL. I'm a foster mom and my house has changed a lot in the past few weeks, in addition to struggling a bit with some mental health and computer problems. I'm in a better state now and am working on the next chapter of Up From Flames. Thank you all for your support and your patience! It means so much to me. 

Love,   
Bee


	13. Chapter 11

~Katara~

There were several Water Tribe people among the Boiling Rock prisoners, but none of them were from the Southern Tribe. I try to see that as a positive as we fly off the island. That was the advice of the 12 year old curled up in the saddle of the flying bison, resting after his extreme display of power the night before. The Avatar State seems to take a lot out of the boy, and as soon as we finished helping the prisoners create a semblance of order for themselves he crashed. So I steer Appa towards the Western Air Temple and try to believe that my father wasn’t at the prison because he’s avoided capture instead of what my mind jumps to.

I used to be more optimistic. Fire Lady Ursa called me Zuko’s little cheerleader. I was constantly assuring him that he would be the best firebender in the world, and it wasn’t a lie. I knew he was destined to be a powerful bender. I knew that one day we would be able to live free of Ozai and Azula. The amount of times we repeated “Azula always lies” to each other was uncountable, and it was always me to remind him. Whenever she knocked us down, I was picking us back up instantly, Ursa and I both were. Ursa helped us both, and then she was gone. It was just me, and things were never the same. 

Aang is always seeing the silver lining. He is so full of hope that it sickens me sometimes. Looking back at the sleeping boy, my heart softens. He’s just a kid. I wish the world would let him be a kid a little longer. Spirits know there's enough of us who grew up far too soon already. 

~~~

It’s dusk again when we reach the mountainous island that houses the Western Air Temple. I hadn’t planned on stopping, but Aang’s begging was incessant and Appa was starting to drop beneath the clouds. I had a feeling he was faking it, wanting to see his homeland just as much as the Avatar, but I wasn't going to say anything. After our little detour at Boiling Rock I’m positive that Zuko has no idea where we are. If anything he’s probably on his way to the North Pole himself, and if we keep going at this pace we’ll catch up to him. 

Aang moves to the bison's head and his grin is so wide I’m worried he'll get bugs in his mouth if he’s not careful. “You know where to go buddy!” The bison begins soaring downward, towards a stretch of woods. They seemed to go on forever, until they didn’t. “You’re going to love this, Katara. Hang on!” I’m hardly able to process his excited words before Appa dives straight down over the edge of the cliff. 

The trees blur into a green blob as we whiz past them, blending into the grey cliffside. There’s a scream, and it takes me a second to realize it’s mine. Aang is whooping and hollering, a giant grin blown impossibly wide by the force of the wind. I squeeze my eyes shut and grip the bison’s fur tighter. 

Eventually, Appa evens out, and I think, not for the first time, that I hate flying. I open my eyes to see upside down buildings built into the underside of the cliff. They’re breathtaking, of course, just as they were 7 years ago, though I’ve never seen them from the sky. As wonderful a view it is, I think I prefer entering the temple from the ground. 

“Isn’t it amazing Katara?” Aang asked me, his face lit up in a way I’ve never seen. He smiles from ear to ear, his eyes full of life and excitement. The boy was generally pretty energetic, annoyingly so, actually, but there was always a sense of loss in his eyes. Like whispers he just couldn’t quite rid himself of. 

Appa flies us in closer to the temple, and we angle toward an open platform. “Yeah, it’s gorgeous.” The words leave my mouth automatically, my mind more focused on how loud those whispers are about to be.

~Zuko~

My Agni Kai with Zhao left me looking behind me constantly. I’m terrified he’s following me. That he will see not only that there is truth in the rumor that I had captured the young Avatar, but that Katara had run off with him. I know there are terrible things said about me in my homeland. I know that there are rumors about why I was banished. About my parents, my mother… I couldn’t bear to show my face if the next one to go around was that the beautiful water bender girl who willingly left the palace to stay with me through banishment left me for a fucking twelve year old. 

The wind bites at my skin, chapping my lips as aI stand on the deck of the ship. The metal is near freezing on my skin. We’re nearing the North Pole now, and the mountains before me hold the Western Air Temple. I haven’t been to this area in seven years. Tara and I had decided to check all the temples right away. It had been our best lead in the near decade we spent on this ship. A dud, of course. They all were. How could we have possibly guessed that the Avatar had been frozen in an iceberg for an entire century. 

I sigh and try and remember how things were. Everything had seemed so awful then, but looking back now I see just how full of hope I was. Katara was too, though I know much of that was her being glad to be away from the Fire Nation. I wonder if she ever actually thought we would find the Avatar, if her excitement was to simply live a life with me away from the abuse she suffered at the hands of my family and my nation. Or if I were ever a part of that equation at all for her.

Someone clears their throat behind me, causing me to nearly jump out of my skin. Ever the stoic Princ, though, I quickly regain my composure and turn, relieved onto find that it’s merely Uncle. 

“Uncle,”. I sigh, taking a step toward him, my body relaxing instantly. ‘Don’t scare me like that.”

“Well, it’s not my fault you were zoned out so completely that you didn’t here me coming, Prince Zuko.” My elderly uncle chuckles, the sound coming from deep in his belly. Zi csn’t help but crack a smile. Uncle has that effect on people. Sometimes it’s hard to believe his is the great General Iroh, the Dragon of the West. “Sincerely, though, Nephew it is not like you to be so unobservant. Why, I haven’t seen you so lost in your thoughts since you and young Miss Katara-“

“Uncle.” I cut him off. “Your point?”

“Yes, well, I wanted to check and be sure you are okay. Were you perhaps thinking on what we have been talkin about?”

My mood immediately soured. “No, I wasn’t. I told you that will never happen!” Uncle began to stammer his way through an explanation, but I scoffed, and he ceases his stuttering. “I will not ever stop, Uncle. Being fat and old does not make you capable of telling me what to do with my life!”

Uncle winced. “Prince Zuko, you’re endangering your crew. Zhao was ready to stab you in the back. He will stop at nothing.”

“Neither will I.”

“Nephew, look into your heart. Would you truly be able to live with yourself if your desire for Katara and the Avatar caused the death of your crewmen? The men you have lived and worked side by side with for a decade? I will leave you with that thought.” With that, Uncle turned his back to me and walked into the ship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 11 is finally out. I know it's been quite awhile. As I said in my note before, My family and home has been utter chaos. I make an apology and say I'm working on this chapter and... my laptop breaks. I don't know about you but I can never focus on writing if I don't have a real keyboard. So I finally was able to order one for my iPad and felt like I was scrambling to get a chapter out. I know its mediocre at best but you can expect better work from me in the future, I promise!


	14. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo, I’ve been suffering from major writers block for the past month or so, and what broke it was a smutty filler chapter. Sorry I’ve been out for so long. Mental health is hard even when you’re not responsible for two little lives. I’ve given up on the prospect of an updating schedule but i have NOT given up on this story, I promise! Hope you enjoy the chapter of nothingness :)

~Sokka~

It’s been a month. A long, grueling month full of traveling by foot through the war ravaged Earth Kingdom. It was a rough go, though it was nice having Suki around. 

After leaving Kyoshi Island, I traveled in the area for about a week on my own, trying to find information on my father’s whereabouts. Instead, I found that no one had any idea the avatar had been found, and not just on Kyoshi. That must mean that something happened keeping him from the Fire Nation. Then one night when I was camping outside a little fishing village trying to find some information, I was ambushed. Again.

Suki didn’t punch me this time, but she didn’t apologize for doing it in the past either. She wanted to come with me, help fight the Fire Nation. So, I let her tag along. 

The firelight cast shadows on the walls of the cave we were taking shelter in. We’d made it to the Northern Earth Kingdom, and now just needed to find a boat that would take us across the ocean to the Northern Water Tribe. I figured they would have the most information about where my dad is. I knew Suki wouldn’t say it but I know she believes finding my father is useless anyway, and that we should simply tell the Northern Tribe directly. She’s right, of course, the North has way more power than the South, and Dad only has control of a small number of warriors. There’s nothing he could do, not really. 

“We should arrive within the next two weeks, if we find passage tomorrow,” Suki was saying, studying a map. Her brown hair fell in front of her face, which was wiped mostly clean of her warrior makeup. She always wore it when we were out, for some reason, but at our camps she preferred a more comfortable dress. I’m not sure if I prefer her in uniform or as she is now- hair down, black makeup smudged around her eyes where she hadn’t rubbed the face paint off hard enough around her eyes, figure more visible in a blue travel tunic tucked into her trousers around her waist. Both, I think, is a good answer. 

“I think there’s some small cargo vessels that came into town today. I will talk to this captain tomorrow.” 

Suki nods, finally meeting my eyes, a task she avoids most of the time. Suki doesn’t enjoy the undeniable tension between us. After all, I’m a dumb sexist jerk by her standards. Whether she enjoys it or not, though, it is inescapable. She can’t avoid my eyes forever, and when she does…

I move closer to her, moving onto my hands and knees and leaning over the map. Suki leans back, settling onto her heels. “You know,” I start, now looking up at her though my lashes. “This may be our last opportunity…”

“Oh, really?” The thin girl replies. “Guess you’ll just have to be disappointed then.” At that, she stood, leaving me looking dejectedly at the map. 

~~~

Later that night, I awoke with a body pressed against mine. The fire had died down to embers, but in my sleeping bag I couldn’t feel the difference in warmth. I did notice, the pressure on top of me, and I reached for my boomerang tucked under my pillow. Too slowly, I realized, as my wrist was grabbed and pinned to the ground. 

“Spirits, Meathead. What are you trying to do, kill me?” A familiar voice sounds, and the grip on my wrist tightens.

“Suki?” My voice raises in pitch with my shock.

“Who the fuck else?” My eyes finally begin to adjust to the dim light and I’m able to make out the traces of her familiar features. The outline of her nose, a gleam reflecting in her hazel eyes. A collarbone, and as far as I can see, nothing to cover it. 

“Suki?” I ask again, eyes never leaving what little I can see of her breasts in the darkness. “What are you-?”

She leans forward, the fur lining of my sleeping bag now tickling her chin. “Oh, come on, Sokka. I know you’re not that stupid.” I bristle at the insult. “Or maybe you’re just all talk. Aren’t you man enough?”

Insults about my intelligence was one thing, but my manhood? That was a different story. With a grunt, I push myself up and flip Suki onto her back, kicking out of my sleeping bag as I move on top of her. This angle allowed a tad more visibility and I feasted my eyes on her exposed chest. Her pale skin was warm in the glow of the coals, but the cold air had her pink nipples standing erect away from her. 

“Oh, trust me, I’m plenty man enough.” My lips tug up in a smirk and I lean forward, taking both her hands in one of mine, lowering my head towards hers as my free hand kneads the flesh of her hip. 

“I’m not sure.” Suki says, and swiftly draws up her knee between my legs. She begins to squirm underneath me, and I believe she expected my grasp to falter, but I just tighten my grip as I grunt through the pain of the unexpected blow. 

My lips rise in a smirk as I tell her “If you want to do this, then do it. As capable as I am of playing this game, I won’t do it.” Though I have to admit, it was refreshing. Water Tribe girls are so submissive, it’s almost boring. The challenge Suki presents is invigorating, and despite just taking a knee to the dick, I’m more turned on than I’ve been in a long time.

Suki relaxes under me, gazing at me through her lashes. I lean down to connect our lips, free hand roaming her body once again. The kiss is wild, an attack in and of itself. She begins tugging her hands down, so I release them, and they immediately start pulling on the hem of my shirt, pulling it up my back. 

I lean back just enough to break the kiss and pull the shirt over my head. The view of Suki naked beneath me is exquisite, and I take a deep breath to steady myself. Her fingers grip my hips, digging into the skin above my pants waist, leaving scratches. She tugs, and I fall forward, landing with my elbows on either side of her head. Our lips meet again; the taste of her drives me mad with lust. 

We roll again, and it is Suki’s turn to pin me down. Hands on my elbows, she slides down my body, kissing a hot trail down my torso. My mind clouds, and I close my eyes, willing myself to get lost in the sensation of her mouth on my body. She must have heard my thoughts, because her teeth pull me to the present with a sharp bite to my hip bone. I hear her give a soft laugh, and grit my teeth. 

My hand flies to Suki’s head. I take a handful of her hair and pull her to her knees as I stand up, shucking my pants as soon as I’m stable on my feet. “Here’s something to put your mouth on,” I tell her, a hand in her hair, the other directing myself toward her lips. She takes me in, and the goose pimples on my skin are not just from the chill in night air. Hissing through my teeth, my fingers grip her hair and I pump myself into her mouth, grinning at the view of the legendary warrior of Kyoshi on her knees with her lips around my dick. Maybe one day I’ll take her in that uniform of hers, have her lips smudge red across her face. 

Nails dig into my hips, run down my thighs. Red stripes raise in their wake. I yank Suki’s head back, push her down onto her back, grabbing her ankle as she kicks out to balance herself. Meeting her eyes I place rough kisses along the inside of her calf. The higher I get the more I lean into her legs, until I eventually end up flat on my stomach, face nestled in the apex of her thighs.

There is little more gratifying than the feel of a woman twisting her fingers in my hair while the sound of her moans fill my ears, the scent of her fills my nose, and the taste of her is on my tongue. 

By the time her moans turned to screams and died out, and my seed was spent on her stomach, I was more than tired enough to use what little was left of the night to sleep before embarking on our journey tomorrow. Suki, however, seems to have nothing but short words and a sleepless night.


	15. Chapter 13

~Katara~

The yellow flames of our campfire dance, casting shadows onto the walls of the temple. We set up camp on an outer platform with a dried up fountain after exploring a bit. I had tried to steer Aang away from areas I knew contained bodies, but I couldn’t remember them all. The poor kid has been sullen since we step foot on the ruins. He didn’t even want to stay the night but I convinced him it was safer here. Neither him nor Appa were in any kind of flying shape. This is the bison’s ancestral home too, after all. They lay curled up together on the edges of camp, facing away from me. 

With a sigh, I lay back on my sleeping bag and watch the clouds drift past the moon. It was half full, just as it was 7 years ago. The fact that this moon is the same moon that hung over every memorable night in my life seems impossible. Things are so different from when I looked up at the moon with a freshly bandaged Zuko, heart full of so many emotions that I didn’t understand then. One thing that hasn’t changed is the tug in my heart, though. I find myself wishing for Lady Ursa, like I have so many times before. It was long ago that I lost count of how many times I wished for a mother to guide me through the complexities of the world and wanted the Fire Lady instead of my own mom. My heart aches when I think about it, but I was so young when she was killed and I was taken to the Fire Nation. 

My mind swims with thoughts, and I close my eyes in an attempt to quiet them. I am doing the right thing. Ozai needs to be defeated. He can’t keep whittling down the world until it’s small enough he can crush it in his fists. But spirits, I miss Zuko. Looking up at the moon I’m only wondering what it looks like for him. Is he close enough that our skies look the same? Or is he ahead of us, looking into the Polar Lights instead of the moon herself? Does he hate me for what I took from him? Will he forgive me if he does? Has he left the bridge at all? I crack a smile at that thought. If I know a Zuko I know he’s had his eyes glued to the map for the past weeks. THe map or the sky, looking for any sign of Appa. Any sign of Aang. The smile falters, and I open my eyes again, hoping to take solace in the company of the only other waterbender I’ve ever truly known.

~Zuko~

I could not believe my luck when I saw the faint glow of a fire from the temple. I could not believe Katara’s ignorance in settling there, in such plain view instead of further in the temple. And it was Katara, I knew. It had to be.

The men grumble as we climb to the top of the cliffs the Western Air Temple hang from. Arduous hikes in the middle of the night were not a favorite activity among sailors, it seems. “Be quiet,” I bark at them. “We must be as silent as possible if we hope to use the element of surprise. We’re almost there; ready the ropes.” 

As I reach the crest of the hill, it was a short distance to the cliff face. This high up, it is almost like being face to face with the moon. I remember camping with Katara and Uncle here, so many years ago. She was so enamored by the moon. The awe in her voice as she told me she felt like she could reach out and touch it. How she felt closer to her people here, miles above the ocean than she had in years. I’m not sure if that was the first time I felt the now familiar tug in my heart for the waterbender, but it was the first time I was aware of what it meant. 

I shake the thought from my head. My mind had to be clear for the next few hours. Katara will fight me, I know she will. She already has the advantage of the night, and I’m not sure how far she is willing to go to keep the Avatar from me. I cannot allow myself to be distracted by bittersweet memories if in half an hours time will find her trying to kill me. 

We approach the edge of the cliff and get to fast work securing our rappel line. Directly below us the warm fire glow from their camp peeks out from the bottom of the cliff, giving away their precise location. I instruct my crew to move 100 meters to the west to allow us to sneak up to their camp, and to avoid a sabotage of our escape route. It’s only a moment before the line is secured in place, and the men look to me, awaiting my orders. “Wait 20 seconds before you follow me,” I say, before making my way down the rope.

~Katara~

For a second, I was positive I was dreaming. There was no way that Zuko could have dropped down from nowhere. It couldn’t be him. It couldn’t be anyone, no one could have known we were here… but I’m not dreaming. It is Zuko, heading right for us. 

“Aang! You need to get up now!” I shout, pulling myself up onto my feet whileI draw water from the skin on my hip. What are the fucking chances, I think, swearing myself. The one night I allow myself to really feel the hurt of missing him, and here comes Prince Zuko cockily sauntering towards me. So confident he’ll leave tonight with everything he wants back in hand. 

“Don’t do this, Zuko.” My voice is pleading, but I won’t let myself truly beg. I won’t give him the satisfaction. I’ll fight, he has to know that.

“I should say the same thing to you, Tara. This is my destiny. This is how I get my honor back.” Zuko pauses, and looks pained. I notice men rappelling down the cliff behind him, and they head for Aang, shooting only cursory glances towards the prince and I. “If I do this Father will welcome me back with open arms.”

A scoff leaves my chest involuntarily. “If you do this, Zuko, Ozai will take over the world. There won't be anything left to stop him. I… I can’t let you do this.” I shift my weight into an apprehensive fighting stance, whipping the water around my feet. I hear shouts as Appa gives a groan, and glancing over, I see Aang on his back diving off the cliff followed by plumes of fire from the hands of Zuko’s men. 

My eyes return to Zuko just in time. His face hardens, and I’m barely able to douse the jet of fire he sends towards me. I can almost read his mind. Fine.If you want to fight, then we will fight, I can imagine him thinking. 

I act on pure instinct. Zuko and I have sparred so many times his fighting style is practically a part of me. I send a wall of ice his way, and he easily melts it, kicking a stream of fire toward me at the same time. He’s angry. He always lets his emotions get the better of him, and his attacks become straightforward, quick. All of his focus goes to offense and he neglects his defense. If you know him, its only a matter of biding your time. 

I roll to avoid his attack, and he sends another, and another. I dodge each one, finally sending a water whip towards his face. He avoids it easily but fails to notice the stream of water now surrounding his feet turn to ice, a trick he always falls for.. “AH,” Zuko shouts, glaring daggers at me. I send whip after whip at. Him, rolling through the motions easily. Anything to keep him distracted from breaking free for a moment longer. 

With his feet bound, he cannot dodge my attacks easily. My heart aches as I see his sleeves tattering, see welts forming underneath. His armor protects his chest, but I know there will be bruises. I push down the guilt. I can feel it later, I cannot allow myself to break down now. Even so tears stream down my face. 

He yells, and gives up on avoiding my bending, instead sending a valley of fire blasts at me. They’re so fast I can do nothing but throw up a wall of water to shield myself. With me on total defense, Zuko is able to release himself from his bonds, and push forward with his rapid assaults. I have no choice but to take steps in retreat. My panic builds as I approach the cliff, knowing I have to do something. If I keep on this path, I’ll never win. He’ll pin me against the sky, and once he’s too close for bending, he’ll overpower me with his physical strength. I just need to keep out of reach, I think. 

Knowing he’ll run out of stamina eventually, I take the chance and throw myself to the side, my shield falling as I redirect the water to form something of an ice slide in front of me. I moved too fast for Zuko to realize, and a flame hits its mark on my leg. Or maybe I wasn’t too fast; maybe it was on purpose. There’s no time to process the shock of that painful train of thought, and even as I shout out in pain, I send a volley of ice his way, decidedly ignoring the lines of blood that follow in their wake. 

Sliding around the prince, I bend the ice to send me into the air, coming down standing, though I stumble a bit. The hear of the burn spreads through my thigh, and my breathing is heavy. So is his though, and he slowly turns his back to the sky to face me. We lock eyes, chests heaving, bruised and bloody. “You’re really going to choose a little kid over me, Katara?” Zuko’s voice is so low I can hardly hear him over the rasp of my own breath. I don’t respond, and his eyes flare with a rage I don’t recognize. “If you don’t leave with me now, that’s it. You’ll be my enemy, and I’ll treat you as such.” 

I look away, but the heat of his gaze is unavoidable. It burns worse than my leg, and I force myself to turn back to him, eyes icy. “If it’s a matter of choice, Zuko, you should know I don’t have one. I’m doing this as much for you as I am for anybody.” My eyes flick over his shoulder, where I can see Aang’s head peeking over the edge of the cliff. “If that makes me you’re enemy, then all I can do is hope that one day you understand.” His breath hitches, and even has he prepares to send a blast of fire toward me, I’m rushing forward, bending ice just under his arm. I slide on it, sending myself underneath his arm, and off the cliff into Appa’s waiting saddle.


End file.
